Quick and easy to make, my Lemon Pasta is the perfect recipe for an easy lunch or a beautiful dinner with your friends.
In Italy, we call it “Pasta al Limone” and we usually use tagliolini pasta for this preparation. They look like super thin tagliatelle and they combine perfectly with this sauce, almost melting in your mouth.
I like to use penne for my Lemon Pasta, but long pasta shapes such as tagliolini, spaghetti, and linguine work perfectly as well.
Today I am going to show you how to make my mamma’s version of Pasta al Limone but there are so many variations you can make according to your dietary needs or preferences.
If you want to make this recipe vegan, you can simply replace heavy cream with the same amount of soya cream and if you like seafood, you can add some shrimp (or prawns) to your sauce and I suggest seasoning it with some fresh chilly or curry powder for a spicy touch.
If you can find them, I strongly recommend using fresh lemons from Sorrento or Sicily for this preparation. They have a thicker peel, they are super juicy and their indistinguishable perfume will make your pasta extremely “mamma mia”!
Ingredients (serves 4):
- -360g pasta
- -the juice and the zest of 1 lemon
- -100ml heavy cream
- -1 garlic clove
- -a small bunch of fresh parsley
- -extra virgin olive oil
- -salt
Finely mince your garlic clove.
Directions:
In a pan over medium-low heat, drizzle a couple of spoons of extra virgin olive oil then add your minced garlic. Sizzle for a couple of minutes.
Now you can add the juice of 1 lemon and let it evaporate for a couple of minutes, or until it starts losing its acidity. Make sure you do not skip this step otherwise your heavy cream will curdle later on.
It is time to add your heavy cream, the lemon zest, and a pinch of salt, and let your sauce simmer for about 4- 5 more minutes.
In the meantime, boil your pasta in some salted water until “al dente” (which means take out your pasta 2 mins before its cooking time) and save one cup of pasta water.
Drain your pasta and add it to your lemon sauce.
Toss well over the heat to combine all the flavors together for a couple of minutes, adding some pasta water to make it super creamy!
Serve your Lemon Pasta with some freshly chopped parsley and, if you like, some grated Parmigiano cheese on top.
Buon appetito!
Angelo Coassin
Angelo Coassin is an Italian professional dancer, actor, passionate home cook, and creator of the page @cookingwithbello. In June 2021, Angelo launched his first cookbook “Bello’s Sexy Pasta”, a collection of his most delicious and authentic pasta recipes.