This Puttanesca Sauce Recipe with Pappardelle Pasta is a classic Italian dish loaded up with olives, tomatoes, capers, herbs, and garlic and is incredibly easy to make and the perfect meal to serve up to your guests.
This sauce is not only simple to prepare, but it can also be made ahead and freezes very well. While I personally believe it’s best served with pasta, it can also go as a sauce on chicken, steak, pork or fish. Remember, just like soup this sauce gets better over time as flavors will begin to infuse and come out.
Whether it’s my Spaghetti Sauce or my Pomodoro Sauce, be ready for lots of flavor!
What Is It
It’s a simple garlicky tomato-based sauce that goes excellent with pasta or on protein. Here are the basic ingredients:
- Crushed Tomatoes (or fresh)
- Garlic
- Olives
- Capers
- Anchovies
- Parsley
Why Is It Called Puttanesca
There are a couple of different stories on the history of where this sauce came from, starting with its origin in brothels where they would throw together ingredients to feed the puttanas, a.k.a whores to give them something to eat. Don’t shoot the messenger.
The other story is a chef in the famous Ischia restaurant had nothing much left to serve some hungry customers and just threw together whatever ingredients he had, translating from “una puttanata qualsiasi.”
How to Make It
Follow along below to see some short descriptions on how to make it.
- Lightly brown the garlic and anchovies together in some garlic in a saucepan.
- Next, add in the tomatoes, olives, capers and red pepper flakes and simmer over low heat for at least 15 minutes.
- Adjust the seasonings with sea salt and pepper and serve.
Remember the sauce will get better with time so the longer you can simmer on low heat the better it will taste.
Serving It With Pasta
The most traditional way to serve up puttanesca sauce is with spaghetti, however, I personally believe you can make it with whatever pasta you’d like. As I stated before it would be excellent overtop a steak, chicken breasts or piece of fish, and I’m going to serve it with Pappardelle pasta.
What Is Pappardelle
Pappardelle pasta is simply a wider cut egg noodle made from a simple homemade pasta dough recipe. Instead of running it through a particular setting, you simply want to slice it yourself once you’re at that stage.
In the same manner, you would want to dry it out a little bit tossed with a dust of flour and letting it on parchment paper or a drying rack. You are going to love how simple this is to make and just how delicious it is.
Recipe Chef Notes + Tips
Make-Ahead: You can make this sauce up to 2 days ahead of time. Simply heat it in a pot over low heat 1 hour before serving it. Adjust the seasonings with salt and pepper.
How to Reheat: Add your desired amount of sauce to a medium-size pot and cook over low heat until hot. Adjust the seasonings with salt and pepper.
How to Store: Cover and keep the sauce cool in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
How to Freeze: Cover and freeze the sauce for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator for 1 day before reheating.
Remember the sauce will get better with time so the longer you can simmer on low heat the better it will taste.
If you love this dish then you are definitely going to like some of my other main dish meals.
My Other Recipes
- Beef Tenderloin Recipe with Herb Butter
- Brown Sugar Salmon Recipe
- Pea and Pesto Naan Bread
- Strip Steak Recipe
- Grilled Chicken with Citrus Butter
Be sure to follow me on Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and Pinterest and if you’ve had a chance to make this then definitely drop me a comment and a rating below!
Puttanesca Sauce Recipe with Pappardelle Pasta
Ingredients
For the Sauce:
- 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
- 8 thinly shaven cloves of garlic
- 4 chopped anchovies
- ¼ cup of assorted pitted and sliced olives black, green and kalamata
- 2 tablespoons of capers
- 2-28 ounce cans of whole plum tomatoes juice drained
- sea salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
- fresh chopped parsley, basil and oregano for garnish
- Parmesan cheese for garnish
- crushed red pepper flakes to taste
For the Pasta:
Instructions
- Sauce: In a large sauté pan with olive oil over medium heat add in the garlic and anchovies until lightly browned. Next add in the olives, capers, tomatoes, red pepper flakes and salt and pepper and simmer over low heat for 10-15 minutes.
- Pasta: Make a 1/2 batch of homemade pasta, or you can simply cook pre-made store bought pasta. 2 pounds dry will serve 8 people.
- To make pappardelle pasta with homemade dough, simply fold the dough over several times and slice it to your desired thickness. About 3/4” for pappardelle. Repeat the process until all the dough has been cut and toss it together with a little bit of flour and place on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper and sit for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Cook the noodles in a large pot of boiling salted water until they are al dente, or slightly crunchy, strain them add them to the sauté pan with the sauce and toss. Season with salt and pepper.
- Serve the pasta with fresh chopped parsley, basil and oregano, and grate on some parmesan cheese.
Notes
- Make-Ahead: You can make this sauce up to 2 days ahead of time. Simply heat it in a pot over low heat 1 hour before serving it. Adjust the seasonings with salt and pepper.
- How to Reheat: Add your desired amount of sauce to a medium-size pot and cook over low heat until hot. Adjust the seasonings with salt and pepper.
- How to Store: Cover and keep the sauce cool in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
- How to Freeze: Cover and freeze the sauce for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator for 1 day before reheating.
- Remember the sauce will get better with time so the longer you can simmer on low heat the better it will taste.
Allyson Zea says
Wow this turned out FABULOUS!!!! Thank you!
Katie says
I can’t wait to try this sauce recipe! It looks so amazing!
Lisalia says
YUM this was delicious! And my grandma might have passed on her bias to me – but I always use real ITALIAN canned tomatoes for this. And I can taste the difference from American canned tomatoes… but that’s just me! Thanks again BP for such a great and easy to make recipe!
Andrea Howe says
This sounds amazing! Thanks for sharing