BLT pasta
Crispy bacon, burst cherry tomatoes and wilted greens tossed with pasta and parmesan, the sandwich you love turned into a bowl.
- 30 min total
- 25 min hands-on
- Follow-a-recipe easy
- Serves 4
- About $3.77 a serving
- 660 calories
Dolly says: Read the steps once before you start. Everything goes smoother after that.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- 8 slices bacon
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lb 4 oz cherry tomatoes, 2 packages
- 12 oz farfalle
- 5 oz baby spinach
- ½ cup grated parmesan
From your pantry
- 1 tbsp salt, for the pasta water
- ½ tsp black pepper
Each serving has about 660 calories, 24 g protein, 73 g carbs and 30 g fat, and costs about $3.77 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No baby spinach? Kale or arugula works.
- No grated parmesan? Parmesan wedge works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Fill a large pot with water, add the salt, cover, and bring it .
Bring to a boil. It means heating a liquid on high until it’s fully boiling before you move on. A lid on the pot gets it there faster, which makes it a good moment to chop something.
How you’ll know: Big bubbles break all over the surface, and they keep coming when you lift the lid.
High heat
Cut the bacon into 1-inch pieces and the garlic.
Mince. Mincing means chopping something into the tiniest pieces you can, smaller than a grain of rice. Tiny pieces melt into the dish, so you get the flavor without biting into a chunk of garlic.
How you’ll know: Every piece is tiny and about the same size, and the pile starts to look almost like a paste.
Cook the bacon in a large over medium for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring now and then, until . Scoop it onto a paper towel and pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Crispy. Crispy means the outside is dry, firm and crunchy. It comes from high heat, a little oil and room in the pan, because crowded food steams and goes soft.
How you’ll know: It sounds crunchy when you tap or bite it, and it doesn’t flop when you lift it.
Medium heatTimer: 9 min
Dolly’s tip: Starting bacon over medium lets the fat melt out slowly, so it crisps instead of burning.Food safety: Cook bacon until it’s crisp and no longer translucent.
Add the tomatoes to the fat and cook 6 to 8 minutes over medium-high, until they blister and start to burst. Stir in the garlic for 30 seconds.
Medium-high heatTimer: 7 min
Dolly’s tip: Press a few with the back of a spoon to pop them. Their juice turns into the sauce.Cook the pasta in the boiling water 1 minute less than the package says. Scoop out a mug of , then .
Reserve pasta water. It means scooping out a cup of the starchy cooking water before you drain the pasta. A splash helps the sauce cling and turn silky, and it’s the step everyone forgets.
How you’ll know: A mug of cloudy water is sitting by the stove before the pasta goes into the colander.
Drain. Draining means pouring off liquid, like tipping pasta into a colander or spooning extra fat out of the pan. Pour hot grease into a can or jar, not the sink, where it hardens and clogs the pipes.
How you’ll know: Only a few drips are left, and the food isn’t sitting in a puddle.
High heatTimer: 10 min
Add the pasta and spinach to the tomatoes with ½ cup pasta water, and over medium for 1 to 2 minutes, until the spinach .
Toss. Tossing means gently lifting and turning food so everything gets coated, like pasta in sauce or vegetables in oil. It coats every piece evenly without mashing anything.
How you’ll know: Every piece looks glossy or evenly coated, with no dry spots hiding underneath.
Wilt. Wilting means cooking leafy greens just until they go soft and collapse. Greens shrink a lot, so a big pile of spinach becomes a small handful, and that’s normal.
How you’ll know: The leaves turn soft and deep green and slump into the pan, usually within a minute or two.
Medium heatTimer: 2 min
in the parmesan, pepper and most of the bacon, adding more pasta water if it looks dry.
Toss. Tossing means gently lifting and turning food so everything gets coated, like pasta in sauce or vegetables in oil. It coats every piece evenly without mashing anything.
How you’ll know: Every piece looks glossy or evenly coated, with no dry spots hiding underneath.
Splash. A splash is a small, quick pour, about a teaspoon to a tablespoon. It’s there to loosen or brighten a dish, so the exact amount doesn’t matter.
How you’ll know: The dish looks a little looser or tastes a little brighter, not soupy.
Low heat
Serve with the rest of the bacon on top.
Crumble. Crumbling means breaking food into small, rough bits with your fingers or a spoon, like feta or ground meat in the pan. Small bits spread through the dish, so there’s some in every bite.
How you’ll know: The pieces are small and uneven, about pea-size, with no big clumps left.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
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