The Dinner That Never Lets Me Down on a Rough Day (It's an Italian Classic)

I love big flavors—no surprise, considering that I wrote a pickling cookbook and grow enough garlic every year to feed a village. I’ll take shortcuts on time but not on taste. So at the end of a rough day, J. Kenji López-Alt’s Spaghetti Puttanesca perks me right up.

I discovered this pasta meal in 2015 in Kenji’s tome, The Food Lab. His online update includes an in-depth article, video, and adjustments to ingredients and techniques. It still creates a bold sauce that you can make year-round from affordable pantry ingredients. Plus, it’s speedy: By the time the dried pasta is cooked, the sauce is ready. 

Puttanesca teems with strong flavors—garlic, anchovies, capers, olives, and tomatoes. In his online version, Kenji uses half his original tomatoes and bumps up the garlic and capers. I take these tweaks as license to be loose in my measurements. Kenji’s online method cooks the pasta rapidly and creates the silkiest sauce.

How I Make J. Kenji López-Alt’s Spaghetti Puttanesca

The sauce takes so little time that I prep all of the ingredients first. Peel and slice large cloves of garlic. Use a knife if you’re mincing smaller cloves, because pressed or grated garlic will burn. I use Kalamata olives for their briny punch and sometimes flake in oil-packed albacore tuna for bonus protein. When I’m extra lazy, I minimize chopping and add small capers whole.

Kenji rightly recommends breaking up whole, peeled tomatoes yourself. Canned diced ones are packed with calcium chloride and unpleasantly chewy. Some brands add this firming agent to canned whole tomatoes too, so check the label. If you’re a gardener, homegrown, home-canned tomatoes make tasty puttanesca. (If you want to use canned tomatoes, chefs favor Cento San Marzano tomatoes.)

With prep done, cook the sauce. I use my largest skillet, so I have room to add the pasta to it later. First, infuse the oil with the garlic, anchovies, and pepper flakes. As soon as the garlic starts to look golden, stir in the capers, olives, and juicy tomatoes. When a briny aroma hits your nose, move the pan off the hot burner. That’s it; the sauce is ready for the spaghetti.

The Secret for Cooking the Pasta and Finishing the Dish

Meanwhile, instead of boiling the pasta in a large pot of salted water, I pull out my 12-inch sauté pan, spread the noodles across the bottom, and then add just enough salted tap water to cover them. Heating the water and pasta together not only saves time but also creates super-starchy cooking liquid. Stir the thickening contents occasionally, to reduce sticking, until the noodles are barely cooked.

From the shallow pan, tongs easily capture and lift the spaghetti directly into the skillet of sauce, without dirtying a bowl and strainer. Now, spoon in starchy cooking water until the sauce clings to the pasta. A couple minutes of tossing the spaghetti in the sauce over moderate heat cooks it to al dente. I never add salt at the end; the pasta water, anchovies, capers, and olives are salty enough. More olive oil, fresh parsley, freshly ground black pepper, and finely grated Parmesan finish this intensely comforting dish.