Creamy Sun Dried Tomato Pasta
on Jan 17, 2025
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This creamy sun dried tomato pasta is a quick and easy vegetarian dinner recipe. The sauce starts in a blender or food processor, and you puree a jar of sun dried tomatoes with cottage cheese and a few other ingredients. This is a more healthy way to get creaminess into homemade tomato sauce. Then you stir fettuccine into the sauce and fold in chopped spinach, toasted walnuts and parmesan.
For a non-creamy pasta recipe with this incredible pantry ingredient, try this sun dried tomato penne pasta.
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
What makes this sauce creamy is not heavy cream, it’s cottage cheese. So much more than a trendy food, cottage cheese thickens the sauce adding its richness along with its signature tang. It is a great source of protein. Recently, I also made a roasted veggie egg bake with cottage cheese.
Sun dried tomatoes are a wonderful shortcut to make tomato sauce from scratch. Unlike canned tomatoes that you need to simmer, sun dried tomato are packed with tons of flavor straight out of the jar. That saves you time from having to coax the best flavor out of your tomatoes. It’s already done before you even start making this easy recipe.
Too bad tomato season isn’t year round. Sun dried tomatoes can get you through those down months. When summer ends, it can feel like a lifetime to get back to perfectly ripe fresh tomatoes. That’s when I go full pantry with canned tomatoes and sun dried tomatoes.
The Ingredients
This is what you need:
- Sun dried tomatoes: You can find them in the Italian section at the grocery. Buy the ones that are hydrated and packed in oil rather than the vacuum-packed tomatoes that you have to soak.
- Cottage cheese: It’s best to use whole milk cottage cheese, 4%. My second choice would be low fat, which is 2%. Do not use non-fat cottage cheese.
- Milk: Any kind of milk will work. If it is a plant-based like oat milk or almond milk, just make sure it is unsweetened and doesn’t have vanilla added.
- Pasta: Fettuccine is always a great choice for creamy sauce recipes. If you prefer a shorter noodle, then use penne.
- Parmesan cheese: This Italian hard cow’s milk cheese adds a smidge of saltiness and umami flavor to this pasta dish. You can substitute with pecorino cheese, which is stronger, or use a mix of both.
- Baby spinach: I tear the spinach leaves, so they soften and get incorporated into the pasta faster than if they were whole leaves.
- Walnuts: I love the nutty crunch that chopped walnuts give the fettuccine. For the best flavor, toast the walnuts on a sheet pan in a 350-degree F oven for 5-7 minutes. I like to buy a bag of nuts and toast a big batch at once, so then they are ready to go when I am cooking.
- Garlic: The sauce recipe calls for 2 garlic cloves. You can add extra garlic if you want.
- Parsley: To finish the pasta, I stir in chopped fresh herbs.
- Red pepper flakes, kosher salt and black pepper season the sauce.
How To Make This Creamy Sun Dried Tomato Pasta Recipe
1. Cook the pasta. You should slightly undercook the fettuccine. That’s because it will finish cooking when it simmers in the sauce. Look at the recommended cook time on the package directions and reduce the time by 2 minutes. Before you drain the pasta, don’t forget to save a cup of the cooking water.
2. Combine the sauce ingredients in a blender or food processor. That includes milk, cottage cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, parmesan, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.
3. Puree the sauce until it’s smooth. Give it 1-2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the food processor or blender as needed.
4. In a large skillet or sauté pan over low heat, warm the pureed sauce. Swirl it around with a wooden spoon. This should only take a couple minutes. Then stir in a half cup of the reserved pasta water to thin it out. It’s important not to crank up the heat on the burner. The sauce should not be simmering or bubbling, or it might curdle.
5. Stir the cooked pasta into the cream sauce. If it seems too thick, add more cooking water, 2 tablespoons at a time.
6. Fold in the spinach, walnuts and parsley. The heat from the sauce and pasta will quickly wilt the greens. Before serving, top with grated parmesan cheese and chopped walnuts.
Serving
For a weekend or weeknight dinner, I like pairing this dish with a salad. Greens are a good way to create balance with creamy pasta sauce. Try this lemon arugula salad, a classic house salad or an Italian chopped salad. You can also serve it with sourdough our another bread with a good crust that you can drizzle with olive oil or just dip into the sun dried tomato sauce.
Leftovers & Storage
Let leftovers cool to room temperature. Then you can store them in an airtight container in the fridge up to 3 days. Reheat them in the microwave or in a skillet lightly greased with olive oil over low heat, stirring frequently. The noodles will soften and lose some of their al dente bite the longer they sit and when you reheat them.
The other day I chopped the cold leftover noodles and tossed them into a spinach salad with balsamic vinaigrette. It was a leftovers salad that tasted great. I also added more walnuts.
Recipe Tips
- It’s important that you let the cottage cheese and milk sit out at room temperature. Give them at least 15 minutes, so they aren’t fridge cold when you make the sauce, or you will risk it separating.
- Don’t overcook the pasta. You actually want to undercook it. As mentioned, simmer it for 2 minutes less than the recommended cook time for it to be al dente. It will finish cooking in the sauce.
- Toast the walnuts. It doesn’t take much time and you can do it in advance. It really enhances their nutty flavor.
More Easy Pasta Recipes
Rigatoni & Tomato Sauce
Lemon Pepper Spaghetti
Burst Tomato Pasta
One Pan Orecchiette
Lemon White Bean Pasta
Mushroom Spinach Pasta
Creamy Sun Dried Tomato Pasta
Ingredients
For pasta
- 10 ounces fettucine
For sauce
- 1 cup milk, let it sit at room temperature for 15 minutes
- 1/2 cup cottage cheese, preferably 4%, let it sit at room temperature for 15 minutes
- 10 ounce jar sun dried tomatoes, oil drained (about 14 tomato halves)
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan plus more for serving
- 2 garlic cloves
- Pinch of red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
For serving
- 1 cup torn baby spinach
- 1/4 cup toasted chopped walnuts plus more for serving
- 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
Instructions
- In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook the fettuccine 2 minute less than the recommended package cook time for al dente pasta. Reserve 1 cup pasta cooking water before draining.
- In a food processor or blender, combine the milk, cottage cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, parmesan garlic, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Blend for 1-2 minutes until completely smooth.
- Warm the sauce in a large skillet or sauté pan over low heat. You should gently reheat it. Do not let it bubble or simmer. Stir in 1/2 cup of the reserved cooking water.
- Add the pasta, stirring it into the sauce. If the sauce need to thinned out to coat the pasta, add more cooking water, 2 tablespoons at a time.
- Fold in the baby spinach, walnuts and parsley.
- Divide the pasta onto serving plates or into bowls and garnish with grated parmesan and chopped walnuts.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
