Pasta puttanesca is a homey, tasty, colorful Italian pasta recipe you’ll love.
Puttanesca sauce has the right balance of sweet from the tomato, savory and tangy from the olives, and spicy from the red pepper flakes.
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It’s hard to beat Italian recipes for quick and simple pasta dishes that taste amazing.
This pasta puttanesca is one of those meals that makes you wonder how a few simple ingredients like tomatoes, olives, and capers can make such a tasty sauce.
And all without meat, fish, or dairy, and ready in about the time it takes to boil the pasta. There are no anchovies in the original recipe!
Originally from Naples, pasta puttanesca or aulive e chiapparielle in Napolitan (olives and capers in English) is now popular throughout Italy and worldwide thanks to its simplicity, beautiful colors, and, most importantly, its wonderfully rich and yet balanced taste.
The sauce has it all: the natural sweetness from whole peeled tomatoes, ideally San Marzano, canned at peak ripeness.
The savory and tangy notes from the capers and black Gaeta olives. The fiery heat from fresh chili or red pepper flakes. The velvety and fruity mouthfeel of good quality extra virgin olive oil and the freshness of the parsley.
Can you tell we love this dish? It’s definitely a family-favorite recipe.
Here we’ll show you how to make this restaurant-worthy meal with little effort at home and a few pantry staples.
Ingredients
Pasta puttanesca has only a few ingredients. But, of course, it goes without saying that the higher the quality of the ingredients, the more delicious your meal will be.
Spaghetti
We like to use bronze-cut spaghetti. Their rugged and dusty surface makes the puttanesca sauce stick better. You can find them in most supermarkets in the pasta section; they are often imported from Italy.
You can also use regular spaghetti, linguine, or bavette. For gluten-free, use gluten-free pasta.
Tomatoes
Whole canned peeled San Marzano Tomatoes are used in the original Neapolitan recipe.
If you can’t find those, get some generic whole canned peeled tomatoes, preferably imported from Italy.
Olives
The original recipe calls for Gaeta olives. Gaeta is a small town between Rome and Naples, with a mild climate that makes excellent black (actually dark purple) olives that are world famous.
You probably won’t be able to find Gaeta olives unless you go to a fancy Italian deli.
Suitable substitutes are kalamata olives or regular black olives. Our advice is to get olives that are preserved in oil. Drain the oil before using them.
Capers
You can use non-pareille capers. They come preserved in brine or salt. In either case, rinse them under cold running water before adding them to the sauce.
Garlic
It’s best to use fresh garlic for this recipe. For a mild garlic flavor, you should crush the garlic and let it simmer in the sauce, then discard it before tossing it in the pasta.
For a more robust garlic flavor, mince or grate the garlic. We like it better with grated garlic.
Parsley
Pasta puttanesca is made and served with a generous sprinkle of finely chopped flat-leaf Italian parsley, which you can find in most supermarkets.
If you don’t have fresh parsley, you can add dried oregano or fresh basil leaves.
Red pepper flakes
Add more or less red pepper flakes based on your spice tolerance. You can substitute finely chopped fresh chili or cayenne pepper for red pepper flakes.
Olive oil
As for most of our recipes, we recommend using good quality extra virgin olive oil. It tastes better with a mildly fruity and nutty flavor; it’s heart-healthy and packed with antioxidants.
Salt and pepper
The sauce probably won’t need any salt because the olives and capers are already salted. If you like, you can add a twist of black pepper.
Note: there are no anchovy fillets in the original Neapolitan spaghetti alla puttanesca.
The recipe from Lazio, an Italian region, however, does include anchovies. If you want to add anchovies, do so at the beginning, with the olives and capers. You’ll only need 3 to 4 anchovy fillets as they are super salty.
Instructions
In a large skillet, warm up the olive oil on medium heat. Add pitted olives cut in half lengthwise, rinsed capers, red pepper flakes, and grated garlic.
Fry gently for 1 to 2 minutes, making sure the garlic doesn’t burn.
Add in the whole canned peeled tomatoes, stir, crush the tomatoes with a fork, and simmer the puttanesca sauce on medium-low heat for 15 minutes.
Taste and adjust for salt and black pepper if necessary.
Most probably your pasta puttanesca sauce won’t need much salt because the olives and capers are salty enough.
While the sauce simmers, cook the pasta.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt it, and toss in the pasta.
Cook the pasta very al dente; that is 3 minutes less than instructed on the package.
Reserve 2 cups of pasta cooking water, drain the pasta and add it to the sauce.
Add 1 cup of reserve pasta water and a handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley, and finish cooking the pasta on medium-high heat, tossing it for about 2 minutes or until your pasta puttanesca is creamy and al dente.
Add more reserved pasta water if necessary.
Tip: undercooking the pasta and then cooking it in the sauce makes the sauce creamier because the pasta releases its starch in the sauce as it finishes cooking.
Also, the reserve pasta water contains starch, so we add it to the sauce.
Serve the pasta with a drizzle of good quality extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of fresh parsley.
Serving suggestions
Serve with a side salad:
- Chickpea salad: ready in 15 minutes, one of the easiest ways to add extra greens.
- Easy side salad with fresh vegetables and leafy greens.
- Fennel salad with orange wedges and juicy pomegranate seeds.
- Quick pear salad with ricotta and toasted almonds, a great salad for autumn and winter!
Serve with bread to soak up the sauce leftover on the plate:
- Easy crostini bread ready in just 10 minutes.
- Bruschetta with fresh tomatoes: an Italian classic and a great side dish.
- No-knead Italian focaccia bread: make the dough the night before for weeknight-dinner-friendly focaccia bread.
- Eggplant Bruschetta with tender and sauteed eggplant is an excellent side dish for pasta and lasagna!
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Our mushroom pasta with cherry tomatoes is a delicious quick pasta recipe with a ton of flavor thanks to the mushrooms sautéed and browned with garlic, then mixed with tomatoes and fresh parsley.
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Storage
Refrigerator: store leftover pasta puttanesca in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 days. Please remember to store some pasta water too.
Reheat in the microwave for 2 minutes with a tablespoon or two of reserve pasta water sprinkled on top. Alternatively, reheat on a pan with a drizzle of olive oil and a dash of reserved pasta water.
Freezer: this recipe is not suitable for freezing.
Tips
How to cook pasta?
To cook pasta, the rule is 1 liter of water for 100 grams of pasta and 7 grams of salt per 100 grams of pasta.
Our approximation to USA measurements is 8 cups of water (2 quarts) per 8 ounces of pasta and 1 tablespoon of salt.
For example, you’ll need about 1 gallon (16 cups or 4 liters) of water and 2 tablespoons (30 grams) of salt to cook 1 pound (450 grams) of pasta.
Questions
No one knows for sure why it’s called pasta puttanesca. However, there are several speculations. Our favorite is this:
“Puttanata” in Italian slang means easy, simple. The story goes like this.
One night a group of friends visited the restaurant owner, chef, and friend Sandro Petti asking him to make them dinner.
It was late after an evening shift, and the chef initially refused the friend’s request because he ran out of fresh ingredients.
The friends insisted, asking him: “Please, Sandro, we have nowhere to go. Make us something easy” – in Italian – “facci una puttanata.”
Sandro put together canned tomatoes, olives, and capers and called the dish “pasta puttanesca.” The rest is history.
The original recipe of pasta puttanesca has olive oil, garlic, San Marzano tomatoes, Gaeta olives, chili peppers, and flat-leaf parsley.
A variation from the Lazio region in Italy includes anchovy fillets.
Spaghetti.
Pasta puttanesca is a savory, tangy, spicy, garlicky, mildly sweet, and acidic sauce thanks to the combination of San Marzano tomatoes, olives, capers, garlic, and chili.
Puttanesca is an Italian recipe originally from Naples. There’s also a popular variation in the Lazio region in Italy.
You should always salt the pasta water if you like with less salt. Pasta cooked in unsalted water is bland, even if your sauce is salty.
My advice is to refrain from adding salt to sauces like puttanesca when you use salty ingredients like olives, capers, anchovies, and soy sauce.
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If you love quick and easy pasta recipes, get fresh inspiration from these fuss-free 20-minute meals:
- Broccoli pasta with an easy-peasy mash-in-the-pot broccoli sauce.
- 20-minute lemon pasta with spinach, grated lemon, and a parmesan sauce.
- Pasta al Limone: velvety, creamy ricotta pasta that takes just 20 minutes to make!
- Spaghetti Pomodoro with a rich and rustic tomato sauce and just 6 ingredients.
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Find your next Italian meal among these reader favorites; they’re all made with simple and few ingredients:
- Eggplant Parmigiana with roasted eggplant slices and a rich and rustic tomato sauce
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Pasta Puttanesca
Ingredients
- 1 pound spaghetti (+ 1 gallon of water and 2 tbsp of salt to cook it)
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic
- ¾ cup black olives pitted (Gaeta, Kalamata, or other)
- 2 tablespoons capers
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes or more to taste
- 28 ounces (1 large can) whole peeled tomatoes best if San Marzano
- 1 handful flat-leaf parsley
- salt + black pepper taste the sauce and add if necessary
Instructions
MAKE THE SAUCE
- In a large skillet, warm up the olive oil on medium heat. Add pitted olives cut in half lengthwise, rinsed capers, red pepper flakes, and grated garlic.
- Fry gently for 1 to 2 minutes, making sure the garlic doesn't burn.
- Add in the whole canned peeled tomatoes, stir, crush the tomatoes with a fork, and simmer the puttanesca sauce on medium-low heat for 15 minutes.
- Taste and adjust for salt and black pepper if necessary. While the sauce simmers, cook the pasta.
COOK THE PASTA
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt it, and toss in the pasta.Cook the pasta very al dente; that is 3 minutes less than instructed on the package.Reserve 2 cups of pasta cooking water, drain the pasta and add it to the sauce.
- Add 1 cup of reserve pasta water and a handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley, and finish cooking the pasta on medium-high heat, tossing it for about 2 minutes or until creamy and al dente.
- Serve the pasta with a drizzle of good quality extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of fresh parsley.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
If you liked this pasta, you might also like:
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Puttanesca sauce has the right balance of sweet from the tomato, savory and tangy from the olives, and spicy from the red pepper flakes.” player-type=”default” override-embed=”default”]
I loved this recipe. Easy, delicious, quick …. what else can I ask? Thank you. I really enjoy your presentation on Youtube shorts!
Hi Lynda, I’m so happy you found us on Youtube and even happier that you liked the recipe! Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment here, it means a lot to us! Have a great Monday. Cheers, Nico