Spaghetti aglio e olio recipe- a traditional Italian pasta dish. In simple words, it is spaghetti with garlic and oil. Very easy to make and of course very flavorful.
It is hard for me to pronounce the dish name 🙂 . In fact, making this dish is much easier than pronouncing. Agree or not? Let’s make it easy, just call it Spaghetti with garlic and oil.
Before making this, I looked for many recipes from google. And finally I come up with my own proportion of ingredients to suit our taste. Actually I added little more red chili flakes than usual. Many says that addition of parmesan cheese is not traditional while some says it is traditional. I have added some because it tastes better with cheese.
The actual flavor in this recipe comes from slowly roasting the garlic with olive oil to the perfection.
Check out other pasta recipes
Roasted red pepper pasta // Pesto pasta // Spaghetti in spicy tomato sauce
How to make Spaghetti aglio e olio recipe (Step by Step Photos):
1) Take a large pot filled with water and also add a big pinch of salt in it. Bring this to a boil on high heat. Once it starts boiling, add spaghetti and cook as per package instruction. Mine took 12 minutes. Do stir occasionally.
2) Once cooked, drain the pasta water and keep it aside.
3) Take olive oil and garlic in a cold pan.
4) Then turn the heat on medium. Let the oil and garlic heats up together, thus you will have garlic flavor infused in the oil. After some time it starts to sizzle up and you will see bubble in the olive oil. This time lower the heat to medium-low.
5) Slowly toast the garlic till they are light brown in color. Do not burn the garlic, otherwise it will taste bitter.
6) Add red pepper flakes. Turn OFF the stove.
7) Add drained pasta, parsley, parmesan cheese, pepper and salt.
8) Toss well, so oil is coated to spaghetti well.
Remove it to a serving bowl, garnish with more Parmesan cheese and parsley.
For the variation, you can add some steamed veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, beans or marinated veggies likes zucchini, red bell pepper, eggplant. For doing so, once garlic is cooked, add veggies along with some Italian seasoning of your choice and then mix with spaghetti or pasta.
Serving suggestion: Serve this with any salad or soup (e.g. roasted bell pepper soup, spinach soup, green onion soup) on side to make it a meal.
Notes:
- Toasting the garlic in olive oil – It is crucial step to make this pasta dish. Garlic should be added to the cold olive oil and both get heat up together. Once oil starts to bubble up it is must to LOWER the heat and toast the garlic till it is light golden brown in color.
- If garlic is too lightly roasted then you will have sharp raw garlic taste. If garlic is too dark and brown then you will have bitter taste of garlic. So toasting to the perfection is the key.
- As being vegetarian, I have used vegetarian parmesan cheese. If you don’t know that the original parmigiano reggiano cheese is not vegetarian cheese, it has rennet in it. I got my veg cheese from walmart. It was in plastic jar, next to all the cheeses in refrigerator.
Spaghetti aglio e olio recipe (Spaghetti with Garlic and Oil)
Ingredients
- ½ pound Spaghetti
- 3 tablespoons Olive oil
- 3 large cloves Garlic thinly sliced
- ¼ teaspoon Red chilli flakes or to taste
- Black peppercorns Freshly crushed, to taste
- Salt to taste
- 1-2 tablespoon Parsley finely chopped
- 1/3 cup Vegetarian Parmesan Cheese grated
Instructions
Making Spaghetti aglio e olio recipe:
- Take a large pot filled with water and also add a big pinch of salt in it. Bring this to a boil on high heat. Once it starts boiling, add spaghetti and cook as per package instruction. Mine took 12 minutes. Do stir occasionally.
- Once cooked, drain the pasta water and keep it aside.
- Take olive oil and garlic in a cold pan.
- Then turn the heat on medium. Let the oil and garlic heats up together, thus you will have garlic flavor infused in the oil.
- After some time it starts to sizzle up and you will see bubble in the olive oil. This time lower the heat to medium-low.
- Slowly toast the garlic till they are light brown in color.
- Add red pepper flakes. Turn OFF the stove.
- Add drained pasta, parsley, parmesan cheese, pepper and salt.
- Toss well, so oil is coated to spaghetti well.
Shaney Ramkisten
enjoying your veg receipe, the left over rice & vegetables.
reminds me of my school days,I used to make chutney & mix with rice,my brother was 5 yrs,he loved it.
my next visit to him in Dundee will be veg & rice for the cold nights& we can catch up with stories.
please send a panir- cheese receipe- I made once& the sour smell I didt like it.
Kanan
Thanks you Shaney. Please check out this recipe section for paneer recipes. Or check out how to make paneer at home
Anjana
Hello Kanan, welcome back !! So happy to see your posts again. Actually with the new layout of your blog it was not easy to figure out if a new post had come up but guess would need to check under the new recipes collection. Hope your house move went well and you are all settled in the new place. Hope to see your new repertoire of recipes for 2015 now!! Take care
Kanan
Thank you Anjana. Yes everything went very well. Yes I have big plans for 2015. Let’s see if I can execute them. 🙂