Whether it's broccoli & pasta or pasta with broccoli, it's a great dish that combines your favorite pasta with a hearty vegetable. This recipe for broccoli pasta will be ready in no time and is a great alternative to put on your weekly rotation for dinner or as a great take to work lunch.
Made with simple ingredients, broccoli & pasta easily converts to a meal for the whole family. You can even add cheese and tomato to make this a cheesy pasta recipe with broccoli.
How to Add Fresh Broccoli to Pasta?
Adding fresh broccoli to pasta is simple really. But before you add your broccoli pasta, you should cook it. Cook your broccoli by boiling broccoli, roasting broccoli, sauteing broccoli, etc. Then add cooked broccoli to your pasta with any other ingredients such as cheese, tomato and red pepper flakes.
You will want to reserve some pasta water to combine your pasta with broccoli, grated cheese, olive oil and any other ingredients.
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What to Cook with Pasta Broccoli
Pasta & broccoli is a hearty dish on its own. If you want to serve something with it, you can serve a chicken with sweet marsala wine, or salad like a tomato salad or a spinach with a strawberry vinaigrette.
Is Pasta Broccoli Healthy?
Broccoli is a healthy vegetable. One cup of broccoli contains 2.5 grams of protein, 6 grams of carbs, 1.5 grams of sugar, 2.3 grams of fiber and 31 calories.
Depending on what pasta you pair the broccoli with it can be healthy. If we look at the nutritional content of traditional white pasta, one cup of pasta has 8 grams of protein, 42 grams of carbs, 3 grams of fiber and about 200 calories.
Pairing the broccoli with a whole grain pasta is definitely a lot more healthier for you, if you can fancy the taste. For example 1 cup of whole grain pasta contains 8 grams of protein, 39 grams of carbs, 7 grams of fiber and about 180 calories.
For the above comparison, I used Barilla Pasta.
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Ingredients Needed to make Pasta with Broccoli
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Ziti or Rigatoni Pasta
- Grated Parmesan Cheese
- Pasta Cooking Water
- Fresh Broccoli
- Cherry Tomatoes (optional)
- Butter
- Garlic
- Salt and Pepper
- Fresh Basil
See recipe card for quantities.
Instructions on How to Make Pasta & Broccoli
Adding cherry tomatoes is 100% optional. If you decide to include them, prepare them as follows.
Lightly season cherry tomatoes with salt and pepper and a splash of olive oil. Bake in oven or toaster over for 25 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Set aside.
Wash and cut the stems off the broccoli. Cut broccoli and boil until tender and wilted.
In a large skillet, sauté garlic in olive oil and butter. Add broccoli to skillet and cook covered. Boil pasta until it is al dente.
Scoop pasta using a spider strainer and drop into into skillet with broccoli and continue cooking. Add a couple of scoops of pasta water to the skillet so that the contents don't dry up.
Cook covered until it is tender enough to eat. Add grated parmesan cheese and roasted tomatoes. Toss and serve with fresh cut basil.
Hint: A spider strainer comes in handy to scoop up the pasta from the pot and transfer it into the skillet.
Substitutions and Variations
Here are some great ideas on how to make this broccoli pasta fit certain diets or variations to make it different:
- Gluten Free - make it gluten free by using gluten free pasta
- Cream - add heavy cream to make it a creamy pasta with broccoli
- Heat - bring the heat by adding hot pepper oil or red pepper flakes
- Vegan - make it vegan by using vegan cheese or using nutritional yeast
- Protein - add a protein like chicken or use high protein pasta
If you know how to make this recipe unique or suit your diet - go for it! Let me know what you did and how it turned out by leaving me a comment. I'd love to hear from you.
Equipment
For this recipe you will need some sort of strainer for your pasta. I prefer a spider strainer. You'll also need a stock-pot and a skillet.
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Get this Free Meal Planner Journal template that you can print or import in to Goodnotes or Noteability.
Storage
This pasta dish stores quite nicely, warmed up the next day. Remember to use an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for not more than 2 to 3 days.
To warm up, place in a skillet with a little bit of olive oil or warm up in the microwave.
These ingredients don't stand up well to freezing and would not recommend freezing pasta.
Note that the storage guidelines provided on this page and site are estimates from personal experiences. We are all adults and as an adult you are responsible to ensure that the food you eat is safe to eat. Since, I'm not a food safety expert, you are responsible to review your local guidelines on food storage prior to storing any food left-overs.
For Canadian Guidelines check Government of Canada's Food and Safety Guidelines for further information and resources.
Top tip
Reserve some pasta cooking water to combine the final ingredients with the pasta. Use the pasta water to prevent the broccoli sauce from thickening and drying out.
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Recipe Details
Pasta With Broccoli
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup Olive Oil
- 3 stalks of Broccoli
- 1 tablespoon Butter
- 1 ½ cups Cherry Tomatoes
- 1 clove Garlic
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- 400 grams Rigatoni Pasta or any pasta
- ½ cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
- 1 cup Pasta Water reserved
- Fresh Basil Leaves
Instructions
- (Optional) Lightly season cherry tomatoes with salt and pepper and a splash of olive oil. Bake in oven or toaster over for 25 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Set aside.
- Wash and cut the stems off the broccoli. Cut broccoli and boil until tender and wilted.
- In a large skillet, sauté garlic in olive oil and butter.
- Add broccoli to skillet and cook covered.
- Boil pasta until it is al dente.
- Scoop pasta using a spider strainer and drop into into skillet with broccoli and continue cooking. Add a couple of scoops of pasta water to the skillet. Cook covered until it is tender enough to eat.
- Add grated parmesan cheese and roasted tomatoes.
- Toss and serve with fresh cut basil.
AmyG says
This is a great recipe to try!