Spaghetti Aglio e Olio could possibly be my all-time favorite dish to prepare. I love it because its quick enough to make on a busy weeknight yet looks and tastes fancy enough that I can prepare it for guests. It’s honestly amazing how a meal that requires 6 ingredients and takes 15 minutes to prepare can taste so good. And what’s great is it requires no special tools or skills in the kitchen, which is perfect for me.

The prep is extremely straight forward and the only “trick” is to get the timing right between the pasta in the pot and the garlic/ chili flakes in the pan, but you’ll figure that out pretty quickly. The only other thing I would suggest is to make sure you slice the garlic super thin. You don’t have to bust out a razor blade like Paulie in Goodfellas, but you at least want the garlic to be translucent. If you don’t have the knife skills to pull this off, or are just in a hurry, you can finely mince the garlic and get pretty much the same result.

I’ve also begun using spaghetti made from Semolina Flour to make this dish a bit healthier. Semolina Flour is a whole wheat flour made from Durum (a hard variety of spring wheat), and it has a number of health benefits including fewer calories, more protein, and extra minerals (such as iron, zinc, and magnesium) than traditional spaghetti. However, this recipe will work with just about any type of spaghetti you want to use, including gluten-free. Just cook it to the specifications on the packaging and you should be good to go.

With that, I hope you enjoy my take on this classic Roman spaghetti dish.

Ingredients:

4 oz dried spaghetti noodles
3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 tsp dried chili flakes
1/4 cup parsley, finely minced
1 tbsp good olive oil
Zest of one lemon
Kosher salt

Preparation:

  1. Start by boiling about a liter and a half of water with two tablespoons of kosher salt (apparently it doesn’t matter when you add the salt).
  2. Once the water reaches boiling add your spaghetti and begin cooking according to the instructions on the package
  3. When you’re about 5 minutes away from the time the package says the spaghetti should be al dente, put a sauce pan on medium-low heat and add the chili flakes and garlic.
  4. Once the garlic begins to turn slightly golden, add about 1/4 cup of the pasta water and bring it up to a boil.
  5. When the spaghetti is just shy of al dente, move it from the water into the sauce pan and begin tossing with tongs. As you toss, the starchy pasta water should begin to thicken and form a sauce.
  6. Once everything has come together and the sauce has thickened up, remove the pan from the heat, mix in the parsley and lemon zest, and plate the spaghetti. At this point you can also add some grated parmesan if you want.
  7. Enjoy!