I tried spaghetti alla puttanesca at an Italian restaurant years ago and I have been looking for a quick recipe version of it ever since. I found this recipe in a Cottage Life’s Summer Weekend Cookbook I was surprised it was in a summer cookbook, but it is so good I don’t care that it wasn’t an Italian cookbook. You won’t either once you try this yummy pasta.
Did you know? Generally served with pasta, puttanesca sauce is a spicy mélange of tomatoes, onions, capers, black olives, anchovies, oregano and garlic; all cooked together in olive oil. According to the one story the name of the sauce comes from the fact that the intense fragrance of this sauce was like a siren’s call to the men who visited “ladies of pleasure.” The sauce name comes from the Italian word puttana.¹ (see more trivia in the Trivia tab)
Cook 4 cloves of finely chopped garlic and 1 can (2 oz) of chopped anchovy fillets in ¼ cup olive oil
for a few minutes until softened.
Add 1 can drained and chopped plum tomatoes, and reserved tomato juice, and pinch red pepper flakes, if desired.
Simmer 10 minutes. Add ¼ cup drained capers and ½ cup pitted and chopped black olives
Stir to combine
simmer about 10-15 minutes longer, until sauce is nicely thickened.
Cook 1 pound spaghetti until al dente and drain well. Add pasta to sauce
Toss pasta and sauce together. Taste, add pepper if desired and serve at once topping with fresh chopped parsley
Spaghetti alla Puttanesca
A quick, easy Italian pasta sauce made with fragrant tomatoes cooked with anchovies, black olives, capers and garlic. Made with pantry staples this pasta is a quick weeknight meal. A fancy spin on a traditional marinara sauce.
Ingredients
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic , finely chopped
- 2 oz can anchovy fillets , chopped
- 1 can plum tomatoes , drained and chopped, reserve juice
- Pinch dried red pepper flakes (optional)
- ¼ cup capers , drained
- ½ cup black olives , pitted and chopped
- Fresh parsley , chopped
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 lb spaghetti
Instructions
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Cook garlic and anchovies in oil for a few minutes until softened.
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Add tomatoes and juice, and the red pepper flakes, if desired. Simmer 10 minutes.
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Add capers and olives and simmer about 10-15 minutes longer, until sauce is nicely thickened.
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Cook spaghetti until al dente and drain well. Toss sauce with hot pasta in a warm bowl. Taste, adjust seasoning and serve at once.
Recipe Notes
I use spaghetti rigati noodles, they are spaghetti noodles that have lines on them. I like how the lines help the sauce stick to the pasta, since it isn’t as saucy as traditional marinara sauce. I start the pasta water when I start cooking the garlic and anchovies, that way everything is ready closer together. Also I don’t drain the noodles in a strainer; I transfer them directly from the pasta water into the sauce. Sometimes, the sauce can get very thick very quick and having reserved starchy pasta water to help thin out the sauce works great. If there are leftovers I ladle some reserved pasta water to help keep the pasta from absorbing all the sauce. That way there is no dry pasta in the refrigerator the next day, if you can wait that long to eat the leftovers! It’s so good you might not be able to wait. I also use canned chopped tomatoes (petite if you can find them) instead of buying the larger tomatoes in a can, and then having to chop them myself. It saves a few minutes and the canned chopped tomatoes are a nice uniform shape.