Do you ever look around at the ingredients available to you, the energy you have to give to the cooking process — or, as I recently explained to a medium-sized child shortly before I got uninvited from future family events, the amount of fudge you have left to give from your, uh, bucket of fudge — and decided to boil spaghetti, toss it with garlicky olive oil, and call it dinner?
There’s an actual, official name for this dish and it’s aglio e olio, and there is no time like the dog days of summer, or perhaps days you might be spending at the whims of an ill-equipped vacation rental house kitchen, to remind us that it does not matter how many amazing things you know how to cook, nothing gets people to look up from their screens/rouse from their post-beach slumbers to peer around the corner with piqued interest like the aromatic wizardry of garlic sizzling in olive oil. “Ooh, what’s that?”
Aglio e olio is a pasta dish from the city of Naples, Italy, but it has legions of fans among exhausted home cooks far and wide due to its short list of ingredients I bet you already have around, and the disproportionately high amount of flavor and joy yielded from them. I’ve used this as a backpocket recipe for years, eating it as-is with a salad, with a side of whatever looked good at the market that week, with a scattering of diced roasted vegetables that had been on their last legs in the fridge, and even, if you so desire (I bet you do) topped with lemony grilled shrimp or chicken thighs. But I also forget that it exists for months at a time, and when I remember it, we’re always thrilled to have it back in the rotation, so consider this a nudge. August is for working less hard in and outside of the kitchen, and that’s exactly where I hope this finds you, too.
Spaghetti Aglio e Olio
- Kosher salt
- 8 ounces (225 grams) dried spaghetti, or any pasta you have around
- 4 tablespoons (60 ml) olive oil, plus more to finish
- 4 cloves garlic, minced, or whatever amount feels right
- 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes and/or many grinds of black pepper
- A big handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley
In well-salted water, boil your spaghetti until it’s 1 to 2 minutes shy of done. Before draining it, set aside 1 cup of pasta cooking water, then drain the rest. In your empty pan, combine olive oil, garlic, and pepper flakes and then turn the heat to medium. [Starting the mixture cold is how I keep the garlic from cooking too fast.] Cook, stirring, until the garlic begins to take on a golden color. Add the drained pasta and half the reserved cooking water and heat together, stirring vigorously, until the pasta water and garlic oil combine to make a glossy coating for the spaghetti. Add more of the reserved pasta water as needed to keep it loose — I almost always use the second half-cup. Toss in parsley, any additional seasoning, if needed, and serve right away with an extra drizzle of olive oil on top. Parmesan on top is not traditional, but your house, your rules, okay?
Previously
6 months ago: Simple Crispy Pan Pizza
1 year ago: Chipwich Ice Cream Cake
2 years ago: Braised Chickpeas with Zucchini and Pesto
3 year ago: Flaky Chocolate Cake
4 years ago: Plum and Cream Scone Cobbler
5 years ago: Deviled Eggs
6 years ago: Pasta with Pesto Genovese
7 years ago: Frozen Watermelon Mojitos
8 years ago: Corn Fritters and Bourbon Peach Smash
9 years ago: Hummus Heaped with Tomatoes and Cucumbers
10 years ago: Corn, Bacon and Parmesan Pasta
11 years ago: Tomato and Fried Provolone Sandwich
12 years ago: Easiest Fridge Dill Pickles and Grilled Peach Splits
13 years ago: One-Pan Farro with Tomatoes and Hot Fudge Sundae Cake
14 years ago: Bacon Corn Hash
15 years ago: Whole Wheat Raspberry Ricotta Scones
16 years ago: Mango Slaw with Cashews and Mint, Thai-Style Chicken Legs, Peach Blueberry Cobbler, and Scalloped Tomatoes with Croutons
17 years ago: Light Brioche Burger Buns, Blueberry Boy Bait, and Lemony Zucchini Goat Cheese Pizza
18 years ago: Chocolate Sorbet
19 years ago: Double Chocolate Layer Cake
This is what my family has every Christmas Eve, for…probably 100 years?
When you have a gigantic, Catholic family and not a lot of money, you need to get the most out of a few ingredients.
As a kid we would not eat all day and then the cousins would basically compete against each other to see how much they could eat (truly a private matter is very apt).
Now, in late middle age, one plate is enough. The memories are more filling than the food.
What a lovely memory! Thanks for sharing it.
Perfect for the summer. Minor note – there seems to be a sentence/step missing between adding the garlic etc to the pan and adding the pasta water. I’m guessing – cook until you can smell the garlic, then add half the reserved pasta water.
It says to cook until the garlic is taking on a golden colour then add half the saved pasta water and the pasta……..
the serving size 😂 perfect.
This is my husband’s all time favorite!
“This is a private matter” 😂😂😂
“Before draining it, set aside 1 cup of pasta cooking water, then drain the rest. In your empty pan, combine olive oil, garlic, and pepper flakes and then turn the heat to medium. [This is how I keep the garlic from burning too fast.]”
Are you missing sentences here about adding pasta water and spaghetti? Next line is:
“Cook, stirring vigorously, until the pasta water and garlic oil combine to make a glossy coating for the spaghetti.”
Yes, now fixed, thanks!
Thanks for the fix. And, for whatever reason I’m still struggling to picture this– mix garlic into oil in pot off heat, turn heat to medium, add pasta. Is the cooking of the minced garlic happening while the pasta is being tossed? (Thanks for helping us not burn garlic nor have totally raw garlic!)
I’m sorry, I really need more coffee this week! Yes, I mix the garlic and oil cold, then I turn the heat on. What I should add (or maybe I accidentally chopped this when I edited it, as it was there before) is that we’re going to cook, stirring, until the garlic just begins to take on a golden color, then add the drained pasta.
Aren’t we approaching 20 years now?! ♥️
Yes! At the end of the summer. How should we celebrate?
With cake, of course!
A line or two is missing in the instructions!!
Seriously, who needs more instructions to make this incredibly simple dish?
Nice change to use oil instead of butter, one that I’ve been enjoying in many cooks.
For those in charge of dinner in poorly equipped beach houses, spaghetti alio e olio is not only a perfect accompaniment to whatever incredibly seafood is available locally: it will stretch your two pounds of shrimp, scallops, or grouper to feed ten delighted people.
This is a mainstay of my Italian family’s table. Methods differ, I’ve added parsley where my grandmother never did, although she always had “sprinkle cheese” on the table. I confess to using a ridiculous amount of crushed red pepper and ground black pepper, and it’s all delicious. We usually serve with roasted sausage and peppers.
Makes me think of the old NYT classic “These generously buttered noodles, sprinkled with just a quarter cup of parsley for color and freshness, are the perfect blank canvas for practically any stew or braise” … !
(Of course these are a little different, but still. Thanks for another great recipe – am putting this on this week’s list!)
One of our family faves!! My Italian mama would suggest you try frying the parsley in the oil with the garlic. (Or fry some of it and add some fresh for a mix of textures).
All I can say from looking at the pictures is that it’s too dry as it needs to be shiny and creamy – you have to up the oil and the cooking water, love. From one of your most faithful readers in Italy!
Finally, a recipe that doesn’t even try and impose serving sizes. I tend to roll my eyes when I see “4 servings” on a recipe with less than a pound of pasta in it. This recipe looks very similar to the Ina Garten one I’ve been using, which makes sense, as pasta dishes don’t get simpler than aglio e olio. I do like leaving the garlic in slices for texture. I also finish mine with copious amounts of black pepper, because almost nothing is better than black pepper and garlic.
This looks delicious and so easy! I wouldn’t be mad at some toasted buttered bread crumbs scattered on top…;)
This, scaled way up because my family is large and ravenous, with drained cannellini and some frozen spinach, is my go-to mindless autopilot dinner. Are the additions authentic? No, but it’s barely more work or expense, and they meld with the garlic oil perfectly. And it means I feel better about eating it multiple times a month.
This recipe is everyday casual, while still being monumental!
Deb, I wish you had a system where I could “like” a comment posted in the reply section.
I have never commented before but, servings: this is a private matter, made me giggle. Thank you and am going to try tonight.
Always delicious, esp when you are short on money and time. Plus, right now if you can score some cherry tomatoes that are perfect summer bombs, cut them in half and add them at the very end, no need to cook them. The heat of the pasta will warm them enough.
Always doing this with my aglio e olio – the older and wrinklier cherry tomatoes the better!
Perfect timing: I cooked this last night, and for such a short list of ingredients, it was extraordinary, Deb. Even my garlic-doubting child ate it with enthusiasm (and some ketchup. Lol). I warmed up some leftover sauteed summer sausage and some leftover ground sausage for people to customize their own bowls, and it all disappeared.
Thanks for such a cook-friendly recipe [happy sigh], and for maintaining such a friendly atmosphere on this site. Both are tremendously appreciated.
*summer squash
Double the recipe and restrain yourself a little bit when devouring.
Leftover alio e oglio makes the greatest spaghetti fritata the next day. All that wonderful garlic oil keeps the pasta strands separate and moist. And it crisps up beautifully.
I’ve tried to make this so many times and can never get it to taste like the restaurant. It just doesn’t taste garlicky whenever I make it. Am I just getting bad garlic at the supermarket?
My mom is, to put it delicately, not a cooking person. This is the one dish she makes really well. Well, this and microwave tomato sauce. Hers doesn’t have parsley or pepper, though. She just slices the garlic crosswise, leaving it pretty large. I open a can of tuna on it (disrespect). It’s great.
This is my favourite “can’t be arsed” summer dish. To make this more cantbearsedable, I only use one pot to make it. After draining the pasta, I’m mincing the garlic while I wait for the pot to cool down and then cook the whole thing there.
My pot is quite heavy bottomed so that might help with not burning the garlic.
Serving size, so true! :)
Our favorite post vacation meal is similar – pasta carbonara. We’ll stash a pint of heavy cream, bacon and some grated Parmesan in the fridge, then quickly cook and assemble the meal once we’re home.
Love the portion size! I am right there with you.❤️
My mother (of blessed memory) loved “high glory ratio” foods – you get a lot of credit for little investment of work and cost – this looks like a winner there!