Pappardelle With Tomato Lemon Sauce

Pasta is a year round winner, and I for one am pasta obsessed. This Pappardelle With Tomato Lemon Sauce is one of my favorite recipes to make when the tomatoes are at their ripest! Hot al dente pappardelle is tossed with a spicy and garlicky fresh tomato sauce that is scented with bright lemons, and it makes for an easy weeknight dinner that’s anything but boring. It’s also a great way to use up tomatoes on their last leg without sacrificing flavor or texture.

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A lot of pasta dishes out there combine tomatoes and lemons in a different way. Most pasta recipes start with a lemon based sauce and tomatoes are added right before serving, resulting in a past where the lemons and tomatoes are separate components in the dish.

What makes this recipe different is that the order is reversed- it starts with a tomato sauce and then the fresh lemon zest is folded in at the last minute to retain that zesty lemon flavor.

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Lemon Basil

When it comes to flavor, lemon basil offers a unique blend of basil’s traditional herbal notes, with zesty, lemony and citric qualities. Its taste is often described as being more intense and tangier than that of sweet basil.

Lemon basil is widely used in both Thai and Indonesian cuisines, where it is known as “kemangi” and “kemangi jeruk,”. It is a popular ingredient in salads, stir-fries, curries, soups, and seafood dishes.

The citrus undertones of lemon basil make it an excellent choice for adding a refreshing and aromatic touch to a variety of dishes, which is exactly what I did here for this pappardelle! It’s lemony flavor matches perfectly with the Eureka lemons and ripe tomatoes.

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Spicy Tomato Lemon Sauce

This recipe is the best of THREE worlds! There’s a little bit of everything here for all pasta lovers- whether you a fan of tomato sauce, pasta al limone, or oil based garlic sauces! So the next time you can’t decide what kind of pasta you want, give this winner a try!

Tomato sauce lovers can rest assured, this recipe uses not one, but two kinds of tomatoes- vine ripened red juicy tomatoes and fresh cherry tomatoes for extra sweetness.

For those of us who crave a solid lemon pasta recipe, the fresh lemon zest is folded in at the last minute to guarantee your pappardelle is bright and bursting with lemon flavor. 

And finally, for pasta enthusiasts who love a good oil based sauce like aglio e olio, garlic, red pepper flakes and generous amount of olive oil are swirled together in a hot pan to create fragrant, spicy magic.

What kind of tomatoes can I use for this recipe?

For this recipe I used vine ripened red tomatoes and cherry tomatoes to create some differences in flavor and textures. The cherry tomatoes are intensely sweet while the red tomatoes create the bulk of the sauce and provide a more mild sweetness.

You can also use other tomato varieties like golden tomatoes or heirlooms for a different kind of flavor, pretty much any tomato will work for this recipe!

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What kind of pasta can I use for this recipe?

Pappardelle has a nice, flat shape which folds in nicely with this light tomato and lemon sauce, like angel hair pasta, but you can use your favorite pasta shape for this recipe!

I prefer long pasta with tomato sauces, but you could also do chunkier shapes like penne, fusilli, or trottole which will hold the tomato sauce in their ridges nicely.

Pappardelle With Tomato Lemon Sauce Recipe

Although this is a rather simple sauce that’s made with only a handful of ingredients, the power of each ingredient shines through as standalone stars and lifts each one up to create this fresh, summary pasta.

INGREDIENTS  

• 1 lb. dried pappardelle or any pasta of your choice
• ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 red ripe tomatoes
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• lemon zest from 1 lemon
• 10 leaves fresh lemon basil or regular basil

INSTRUCTIONS 

• Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat until shimmering. 
• Add the crushed garlic and chili flakes and swirl the pan around for a few seconds until the garlic becomes fragrant.
• Add in half of the fresh basil and give the pan another swirl.
• Pour in the crushed tomatoes and salt, and lower to medium low heat.
• Simmer the sauce for 15-20 minutes until the liquid has reduced slightly and the tomatoes are soft. 
• While the sauce is simmering, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
• Season the water with a generous amount of salt.
• Add the pappardelle to the boiling water and cook according to package instructions or until al dente. Drain the pappardelle, reserving 1/2 cup of the pasta water. 
• Add the cooked pasta and pasta water to the tomato sauce and toss until evenly coated. 
• Add in the remaining half of the basil, and 9the lemon zest, and toss quickly to combine. 
• Dish into warm serving bowls and top with extra basil and olive oil if desired.