Pasta with Tomato Raw Sauce
Serves 4
Now, it doesn’t get any easier than this! This recipe is just about as easy as opening a jar of sauce: you chop up a few ingredients and don’t even need to cook them! The heat from the cooked pasta warms them through.
Ingredients
- 1 box short cut pasta, such as penne, strozzapretti or casarecci (16 ounces)
- 4 large or 6 medium tomatoes (about 2 pounds), seeded and chopped
- 20 basil leaves, torn
- 10 sprigs tarragon, leaves removed and chopped
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 large garlic clove, grated
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
- 4 ounces ricotta salata cheese, crumbled. Ricotta salata is different from the regular ricotta cheese you use in dishes like lasagna. It is a dry, lightly salted sheep’s milk cheese. If you can’t find it, you can substitute another dry cheese such as feta cheese or goat cheese.
Directions
- Place a large pot of water over high heat and bring to a boil.
- Once the water is boiling, add a generous amount of salt and the pasta and cook until al dente according to package directions. Reserve about one cup of the starchy cooking water and drain the pasta.
- While the pasta is cooking, add the tomatoes, basil, tarragon, salt and pepper to a large mixing bowl. Using a microplane or the fine side of a box grater, grate the garlic into the bowl.
- Add the cooked pasta to the bowl and drizzle with the EVOO. Add some of the reserved pasta water to create a sauce and toss to combine.
- Allow the pasta and tomatoes to rest a few minutes before serving. Top with crumbled ricotta salata cheese.