Goat cheese pasta with arugula and lemon
Tangy goat cheese melts into a creamy lemon sauce with peppery arugula and toasted walnuts, an elegant pasta that takes 20 minutes.
- 25 min total
- 15 min hands-on
- Anyone can make this
- Serves 4
- About $2.42 a serving
- 480 calories
- Vegetarian
- Gluten-free
Dolly says: I’d make this on a weeknight. It’s on the table in 25 minutes.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- ⅓ cup walnuts, chopped
- 12 oz gluten-free pasta, any shape; regular pasta works too
- 4 oz goat cheese
- 1 lemon, zested and juiced
- 3 cups arugula
From your pantry
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- ½ tsp black pepper
Each serving has about 480 calories, 13 g protein, 70 g carbs and 17 g fat, and costs about $2.42 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No lemons? Limes work.
- No arugula? Baby spinach or spring mix works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Fill a large pot with water, add the salt, cover and over high heat.
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
Toast the walnuts in a dry over medium heat 3 to 4 minutes, shaking the pan, . Tip them into a bowl.
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.
Fragrant. Fragrant means cooking until you can clearly smell it, usually garlic or spices, often in about 30 seconds. That’s the moment the flavor is ready, just before it can burn.
How you’ll know: You can smell it from a step back, and garlic is pale gold, not brown.
Medium heatTimer: 3 min 30 sec
Cook the pasta until , tasting 2 minutes before the package time. Scoop out 1 cup of , then .
Al dente. Al dente is Italian for “to the tooth”: pasta cooked until tender but with a slight firm bite in the center. It holds up in sauce and keeps softening a little after you drain it.
How you’ll know: Bite a piece a minute before the package time: tender, with a slight firm bite in the middle and no crunch.
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
Dolly’s tip: Gluten-free pasta softens fast, so taste early and pull it with a little bite left.In the empty pot, stir the goat cheese, lemon , 1 tablespoon lemon juice, the oil and pepper with ½ cup of hot until creamy.
Zest. Zest is the thin, colored outer layer of citrus peel, rubbed off on the smallest holes of a grater. It holds the fruit’s fragrant oils, so it adds bright flavor without the sourness of juice.
How you’ll know: You see bright flecks and smell citrus right away; stop when you reach the white layer, which is bitter.
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.
Dolly’s tip: The hot water melts the goat cheese right into a sauce. Add a little more if it’s thick.Add the pasta and arugula and until the arugula just .
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.
Taste, add salt or more lemon if it needs it, and serve with the walnuts on top.
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.
