Tomato and Spinach Pasta

What makes this Tomato and Spinach Pasta different from all the other recipes? This meatless, Mediterranean-style pasta is healthy and packed with fresh ingredients (cherry tomatoes, spinach, capers, kalamata olives, green olives, garlic, lemon juice)! This recipe has no cream, no heavy cream, no half-and-half. The pasta is smothered in a delicious lemon garlic butter sauce. The whole recipe comes together fast in 30 minutes. Serve it as a meatless main course or a side dish with your favorite meats (protein).

Ingredients

12 oz pasta fettuccine or other long pasta

2 tablespoons olive oil

5 cloves garlic minced

10 oz cherry tomatoes red and yellow, halved

5 oz fresh spinach

⅓ cup Kalamata olives pitted, sliced

¼ cup green olives pitted, sliced

2 tablespoons salted butter

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice or more, to taste

3 tablespoons capers drained, divided

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Instructions

Cook pasta

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add pasta and cook according to package instructions. Drain.

Proceed with the rest of the recipe while you wait for the water to boil and while the pasta cooks.

Make the sauce and assemble

Heat a large high-sided skillet over low-medium heat. Add olive oil, minced garlic, half of the cherry tomatoes (saving the other half of tomatoes for later), and 1 tablespoon of capers. Cook on low-medium heat, stirring, for 4 minutes.

Add fresh spinach, and cook for a couple of minutes on low-medium heat until spinach wilts.

Add the remaining half of the tomatoes.

Add sliced olives.

Add cooked drained pasta and butter.

Squeeze lemon juice over pasta and stir.

Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons of capers over the pasta. Season with salt, freshly ground black pepper, and red pepper flakes.