Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta with Spinach

This creamy sun-dried tomato pasta is packed with flavour, it's such an easy recipe and ready in under 30 minutes. Penne pasta in the creamiest garlic and cheese sauce with tender sun-dried tomatoes, fresh baby spinach and toasty pine nuts. This is a great vegetarian dinner for busy weeknights.

Jump to:

• What You'll Need
• How To Make Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta
• Recipe Tips
• Variations
• More Delicious Pasta Recipes
• Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta

I don't know about you but creamy pasta dishes are definitely in my top ten best comfort foods. I love nothing more than a big bowl of creamy mushroom stroganoff or creamy garlic mushroom pasta to satisfy my carb cravings.

This sun-dried tomato pasta is my kind of pasta. It's deliciously creamy and so easy to make, everyone loves it! I love how simple this recipe is but you could easily add more veggies in if you want to.

The pasta is cooked until al dente and then covered in that creamy sun-dried tomato sauce making this a delicious creamy pasta recipe that the whole family will love. This really is the perfect recipe for busy weeknights!

What You'll Need

You only need a few store cupboard ingredients to make this sun-dried tomato pasta recipe, you probably have most of these ingredients already.

• Sun-dried tomatoes - I use the kind of sun-dried tomatoes you can find in oil, you can get them from the deli counter or buy them in jars.
• Pasta - I used penne pasta for this recipe but almost any type of pasta will work very well.
• Spinach - Fresh spinach is best for this dish and I use baby spinach as it has a milder flavour.
• Cream - I use double cream (heavy cream) for this recipe and full-fat is best.
• Herbs - You'll need a mixture of fresh herbs and dried for this recipe. I use fresh basil and dried oregano.
• Cheese - any hard Italian cheese such as pecorino is perfect for this recipe. If you are in the US you could use parmesan cheese if you like.
• Other ingredients - you'll also need one onion, fresh garlic a pinch of nutmeg and pinenuts. The pine nuts are optional but recommended.

How To Make Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta

This is just a quick visual guide, please see the recipe card below for full instructions and an ingredient list.

1. Add the oil to a large pan. Cook the onion until soft. Add the minced garlic and oregano, cook for a minute then stir in the sliced sun-dried tomatoes. Cook the pasta according to the package instructions and toast the pine nuts.
2. Pour in the cream, stirring all the time. Once all the cream has been incorporated add the grated cheese to the pan and stir well. Add a little grated nutmeg and season with salt and ground black pepper.
3. Add the spinach to the sauce, and stir until the spinach is wilted.
4. Reserve some of the pasta water then drain the pasta, add the reserved pasta water to the sauce then tip the pasta into the sauce. Stir in the chopped basil then serve immediately with toasted pine nuts and more grated cheese.

Recipe Tips

• To remove the excess oil from the sun-dried tomatoes place each tomato flat on a chopping board. Use the back of a kitchen knife and scrape the tomato from the top to the bottom to remove the oil.
• Add 3 or 4 tablespoons of the water from the cooking pasta to your sauce, this will add more flavour to your sauce and help it thicken, helping the sauce stick to your pasta.

Variations

• Add in some veggies - while I love how simple this dish is you can absolutely add in some extra veggies. Try adding mushrooms, courgettes (zucchini), broccoli or peas.
• Pasta - You can use lots of different types of pasta for this dish, penne, and fusilli work great as does linguine, spaghetti or tagliatelle.
• Cream - I used double cream (heavy cream) for this dish, and this gave the best results. You could swap the cream for light cream cheese or mascarpone if you want to switch it up a bit.
• Pine nuts - a few readers have mentioned to me that pine nuts are very expensive in the USA. If you need to swap them for something else you could try finely chopped almonds, walnuts or cashews. You could also change the pine nuts for toasted breadcrumbs instead. The pine nuts are not an essential ingredient to this dish so if you want to omit them altogether you can.
• Spice it up - If you want to add some heat to this dish, then you could add a small pinch of red pepper flakes of dried red chili flakes.

More Delicious Pasta Recipes

We love our pasta dishes at TLFB HQ so I have plenty of great pasta recipes here on the blog. This Creamy Spinach and Mushroom Pasta is the perfect veggie comfort food. It’s really tasty and satisfying and such an easy pasta recipe, great for a delicious weeknight dinner.

My Creamy Mushroom Pasta Bake is packed with mushrooms and kale in a creamy cheesy sauce baked with a crispy topping. Perfect for a tasty family-friendly veggie dinner. This Pesto Pasta Bake is a delicious vegetarian pasta bake packed with hidden veggies! Perfect for a tasty weeknight dinner. Or try my Harissa Roasted Vegetable Pasta, the veggies are roasted in harissa, and tossed in pasta and creamy goat's cheese to make a deliciously creamy pasta. Great for a quick and easy weeknight dinner.