This is a recipe from https://www.budgetbytes.com/2015/05/easy-spinach-ricotta-pasta/) that I double to make it work with 1lb of pasta (#end)). It really is one of the few ways I will enjoy spinach – covered in ricotta or some other type of cheese. Plus it’s pretty quick, doesn’t have a whole lot of ingredients and gives you something to do while waiting for the water to boil.
See? you can even use frozen spinach. First step is to get the spinach out and thawing, then fill up a pot of water to boil for the pasta. Next you want to mince the garlic and saute it in the olive oil until it is soft and fragrant.
Don’t let the garlic brown, when it smells good add the milk and ricotta
It won’t mix well at first and the ricotta will be lumpy, but let it heat through and stir it around a bit and eventually it will be smooth. That’s when you add salt and pepper.
The oil may not mix completely in at this point, but it doesn’t seem to matter in the end so don’t worry. Before adding the spinach make sure its thawed if it was frozen and also make sure to squeeze as much water out as possible. While it looks nice
all that water is going to mess with the sauce.
Give it a good mix around and check your pasta water, when it’s boiling add the pasta and cook until al dente (reserve some of the water). Because after mixing the spinach around
it’s time to add the pasta and mix again. At this point salt and pepper again, make sure it has some flavor.
And that’s it. Well if it’s a bit too thick add some of that pasta water you saved from earlier. What’s that? You forgot to reserve the pasta water? Me too, all the time, don’t worry it still tastes good.
The Recipe:
Prep time: 10mins
Cook time: 20mins
Total time: 30mins
1lb pasta
4tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic
1 cup milk
2 cups ricotta
1/2lb spinach
salt & pepper
Total weight: 2208g*
Total Calories: 3235*
Boil water for pasta, cook to al dente and reserve about 1cup of the water. While waiting for water to boil, or pasta to cook, mince the garlic, saute in the olive oil over medium heat until soft (not browned), about 1-2mins. Add the milk and ricotta, stirring until smooth, about 5mins. Season with salt and pepper.
Chop spinach and squeeze to remove as much excess moisture as possible, then add to sauce. Stir well and add cooked pasta. Stir again, season again and add pasta water if sauce is too thick.
Notes: I’ve used up to a pound of spinach with a pound of pasta and still got great results without changing anything else.
* The total weight is something I’ve done to help count calories/portions and it is a measure of the uncooked ingredients, well the cooked pasta sort of. It’s really hard to find cooked vs uncooked weight difference in foods online. This way I don’t have to figure maybe I had a cup or a third of a recipe, I know I had 100 grams.
*The total calories is again something I’ve done to help count calories. If the total recipe weighs 2000g and has 1000 calories and I ate 1000g I know I ate about 500 calories. This method isn’t exact because of cooked vs. uncooked weights of foods and I’m not actually measuring the total weight, I’m using the adding up the weight of the ingredients I found online, I found it works well enough for my uses. Maybe I’ll make a post about it to go into some more detail.