This delicious crab pasta is cooked in one pot – pasta and all – and is ready in 15 minutes! Perfect for a quick meal anytime of the week.
I can’t tell you how excited I am to share this recipe for this super-easy one-pot crab pasta. It is ridiculously delicious and and so, so quick. I have made it three times last week alone – obviously I was craving carbs on a monumental scale. I blame the changing seasons 😉
Making pasta and sauce in one pot sounds like it shouldn’t work, but you are in for a surprise… it works a TREAT. Fry your chopped onions and garlic, add tinned chopped tomatoes, stock, and your pasta of choice and 15 minutes later you have a deliciously rich tomato sauce that you can customise as you like.
Choosing the right pasta is key though. Spaghetti or linguine work well but the don’t absorb the sauce as well as my favourite bucatini (slightly thicker than spaghetti with a tiny hole in the middle). You can also use other types of pasta – small shapes like stellini, orzo and ditalini work really well.
Bear in mind that your pasta is cooking in much less liquid than usual, so it will need frequent stirring and maybe a couple of extra minutes than the time specified on the box. Once it is cooked al dente the sauce will be just the right consistency. You can add a little mascarpone to your tomato pasta for a creamy vegetarian version. I really love adding (tinned) crab meat or shrimp for a seafood version.
You can also make this dish with fresh tomatoes instead of tinned simply by throwing them in with the stock. And if you want an even speedier dish you could use frozen chopped onions, garlic and chillies. I can’t wait to experiment with other ingredients and see what deliciousness I end up with!
Super easy one-pot crab pasta - ready in 15 minutes!
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large onion finely diced
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1/2 red chilli deseeded and finely diced
- 400 g | 14oz tin chopped tomatoes
- 500 ml | 2 cups vegetable stock
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 200 g | 7oz bucatini pasta
- 200 g | 7oz crab meat I used tinned lump crab meat
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- zest of 1 lemon
- freshly ground black pepper to season
- 1 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
- grated cheese such as Pecorino, to serve
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil in a large lided pot. Add the onion, garlic and chilli and fry, stirring, for 4 minutes.
- Add the chopped tomatoes and stock and bring to the boil. Add the sugar and salt.
- Add the pasta and once it softens slightly press it down to that it is submerged in the sauce.
- Cover the pot and simmer for about 10 minutes (usually +2 minutes to whatever the optimum pasta cooking time is), occasionally stirring to make sure nothing sticks.
- Once the pasta is cooked al dente, add lemon juice and crab meat and toss to combine.
- Add the lemon zest, check the seasoning and add pepper and salt, if needed.
- Serve sprinkled with the parsley, with a little grated cheese if you like.
Notes
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