Sun Dried Tomato Pasta with Spinach
As a young girl, I didn’t enjoy many of the foods I love today. The list included eggplant, okra, and sun dried tomatoes, to name a few. Now, I adore all of these foods and try to incorporate them into my meals as much as I can.
Sun dried tomatoes, for example, add tons of flavor and can be a wonderful addition to a breakfast quiche or a creamy pasta like this one.
In fact, this sun dried tomato pasta is an absolute dream and will make everyone a fan of this pantry staple.
Typically, I give my sun dried tomatoes a rough chop and then toss them into the food processor for one of my favorite pasta salad recipes.
I’ve learned that if you purée the sun dried tomatoes rather than just toss them into the pasta, you’ll get much more of the sun dried tomato flavor in each bite.
I apply the same technique with this creamy sun dried tomato pasta by blending the tomatoes with the cream, garlic, and parmesan in my food processor.
The resulting sauce for this sun dried tomato pasta is absolutely tantalizing. It’s simply made, using just a small handful of ingredients, and coats the pasta perfectly.
I love making this recipe for a quick dinner, even though it’s nice enough to serve to guests. I add fresh spinach into my sun dried tomato pasta, but you can swap that out for basil leaves instead, in case you’re not a fan of spinach.
Other tasty variations would include grated pecorino or asiago cheese instead of the parmesan.
Either way, this is one quick, but comforting meal that’s bursting with delicious sun dried tomato flavor.
Sun Dried Tomato Pasta
Easy pasta dinner with a blender sauce made up of flavorful sun-dried tomatoes and parmesan.
Ingredients
- 1/3 bag of penne pasta, (about 5-6 oz)
- 1 tbsp salt for pasta water
- 1/4 cup half n half
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 2 tbsp chopped sun dried tomatoes, with oil
- 2 large cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- 1/2 lb chicken, cut into thin strips
- 1/4 a large onion, chopped
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- pinch of salt and pepper
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 cup fresh spinach
Instructions
- Cook pasta with 1 tbsp of salt according to the package's instructions. Meanwhile, add the half n half, parmesan, sun dried tomatoes, and garlic to your food processor. Purée until smooth and thick.
- In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil. Add the chopped onions and chicken strips. Add a pinch of salt and pepper, and cook until chicken is cooked through. Add the tomato paste, and stir it in to coat all of the chicken. Cook for another minute.
- Pour in the sun dried tomato sauce, the cooked pasta, and the french spinach. Give everything a big stir and taste test for more salt or added parmesan cheese.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 2 Serving Size: 2 ServingsAmount Per Serving: Calories: 716
Just made this for dinner and loved it, I used a hand held blender to save me cleanup time
Wonderful to hear! 🙂 Great idea using the hand held blender. Thank you for sharing the feedback <3
I had no idea that if you process sun-dried tomatoes in a food processor you could get more flavor. But now that I think about it, I can see why. I love sun-dried tomatoes. I can only imagine the amount of flavors in this pasta dish. This is soooo my kind of comfort food.
Well done! <3
Thanks so much, Aysegul! I think the food processor helps disperse more sun dried tomato bits into the sauce so that it melds into one component rather than a cream sauce studded with sun dried tomato chunks. 🙂
There’s nothing better than a big bowl of creamy and cheesy pasta with a big loaf of french bread and a big bottle of red wine. Great recipe and sun dried tomatoes are so yummy too!
Thank you, Karrie! And you are SO right…that there is a perfect meal to me! <3
I love pasta dishes like this one, simple yet delicious, great:)
Thank you Natalia! I am a big fan of simple and delicious too 😉
This looks so delicious, beautiful photographs, not always easy to make pasta look so enticing!
Thank you so much, Anna! That’s so nice of you to say 🙂