It’s the season for Asparagus. It’s also the season to spend more time outside and less time in the kitchen by choosing quick light meals. This 5 Ingredients Asparagus Pasta is not only tasty with minimal effort but comes together in 10 minutes. A weeknight meal cannot get any better than this!
What ingredients go in the 5 Ingredients Asparagus Pasta
This Asparagus Pasta is a great dish to prepare with kid. You can chop the asparagus or shave it using a vegetable peeler.
Pasta: I went with spaghetti, but you can choose with any variety of pasta that you have handy. You can also use gnocchi or ravioli for this dish.
Asparagus: To make it a little interesting, I shaved a few asparagus. I left the tender tip portion longer at the end and I chopped them into bite size.
Garlic: A couple of garlic cloves that were thinly sliced for the flavor burst as it goes very well with fresh lemon.
Lemon: Fresh lemon definitely makes all the difference in the dish, both the zest and the juice
Parmesan Cheese: When a pasta recipe calls for such few ingredients, you need a good doze of grated Parmesan to bring the sauce together.
Apart from these key 5 ingredients, there is also olive oil, salt and pepper that are being used.
One key ingredient that makes the creamy sauce for the asparagus pasta is to use the pasta water. Make sure to save some while draining the pasta.
How to choose Asparagus?
As the name suggests the key element for this 5 Ingredients Asparagus Pasts is pasta and asparagus.
- Look for bright green asparagus, thick or thin, doesn’t matter
- The spears should be firm and not limp
- The tips of the asparagus should look closed and tight
Storing: Just trim the ends and wrap it in a damp kitchen towel so that it doesn’t dry out. Place them in a bag and keep it in the refrigerator. Or you could store it like herbs by placing them in a glass with little water and covering the top with a plastic bag.
In my book, pasta with asparagus is a great meal to cook with your kids too. If you follow my Instagram story, you would know that my 5 years old loves to help me in the kitchen. Recently, I have switched him from baking to cooking, getting him more close to the hot stove but with precaution, of course.
Like most toddlers, he can get a little fussy with green vegetables. Asparagus is not his favorite and in order to make him enjoy this meal, I got him working in preparing the dish. He helped me snap the asparagus and cook the meal but at the end, he mostly ate pasta and a very little of the asparagus. Well, I tried and he tried too. The taste will come to him eventually, I guess.
Here are more pasta recipes to try!
Pasta with Shaved Carrots and Carrot Green Sauce
Rigatoni Broccoli Casserole
Chicken Bolognese Baked Ziti
5 Ingredients Asparagus Pasta
Ingredients
- 6 oz spaghetti
- 1 lb asparagus
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 lemon
- ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly cracked pepper
Instructions
- Thinly slice the garlic cloves.
- For asparagus, you could either shave all the asparagus or go half and half, like I did. For half the asparagus, I used a vegetable peeler and shaved into thin ribbons. For the rest of the half, I chopped it into bite size while keeping the tender tips longer.
- Place a big pot of water to boil and add salt to it. Once the water starts boiling, drop the spaghetti and boil for 8 minutes. After 4 minutes, drop the asparagus, both shaved and chopped.
- At the same time, place a skillet on medium heat. Pour the oil and sliced garlic. As the oil heats up, the garlic chips will start to sizzle (this method of adding garlic in cold oil gives maximum garlic flavor to the sauce). Make sure not to burn the garlic chips. Switch the heat off once it turns mild brown in color. Add the lemon zest, lemon juice and ¼ cup of the Parmesan cheese. Give it a stir and keep it aside until the spaghetti and asparagus are boiled and ready.
- Once the pasta is boiled, add ¼ cup of the pasta water to the skillet along with the boiled pasta and asparagus. Add rest of the Parmesan cheese. Mix it around and serve immediately with more Parmesan cheese on top.
Notes
Nutrition
