Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca

Spaghetti all puttanesca, a classic Italian pasta dish with an interesting history and delicious ingredients like anchovies, capers, and olives. It's easy to make, packs in so much flavor, and is the perfect addition to your dinner menu!

Course Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 30

Servings people

Calories 401kcal

Author Pina Bresciani

Ingredients

250 grams spaghetti
2 tablespoon olive oli extra virgin
2 garlic cloves
chili flakes to taste
4-5 anchovy filets can substitute 2 teaspoon anchovy paste
2 tablespoon capers in brine rinsed, roughly chopped
½ cup Gaeta olives pitted, roughly chopped
1 ½ cups crushed strained tomatoes (passata)
3 tablespoon fresh parsley minced
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

In a large pan, heat olive oil over medium-low heat. Add garlic cloves and chili flakes and cook until garlic is fragrant. In the mean time, bring a pot of water to boil.
Add the anchovies to the pan, and let them melt into the olive oil. Remove the garlic cloves. Add the capers and olives.
Add the tomatoes to the pan, along with some water from the jar (about ¼ cup). Let the sauce simmer for 15-20 minutes.
When sauce is almost ready, add pasta to boiling salted water and cook until al dente.
Add salt to the sauce only if necessary (taste it to see), and stir parsley into the sauce.
Add pasta to the pan along with a bit of pasta water and mix until sauce is well-incorporated and mostly absorbed, a few minutes.
Plate and top with more parsley. Enjoy!

Video

Notes

Even if you don't like anchovies, try adding them to this dish! It will not make the end result taste "fishy." Instead it gives the whole dish a savory umami flavor.
You may not need to add salt to this dish because of the addition of anchovies. Always taste the sauce to see if it needs any salt.
This recipe mentions to remove the garlic cloves to give a subtle garlic flavor (this is most commonly the way garlic is used in Italian cooking), but if you'd like a stronger garlic flavor, feel free to shop up the garlic and leave it in.
Gaeta olives are traditionally used in this dish, which are similar to Kalamata olives. If you can't find Gaeta, you can use Kalamata, or any type of olive. Green olives will work well too.
Between salting the pasta water, the salty olives, capers and anchovies, you will have to add very little salt to this dish.
We recommend using an unsalted passata in this dish. If the passata you're using already has salt added, the final dish will most likely be too salty, given the salt content in the other ingredients (olives, capers, anchovies)

Nutrition