One Pan Creamy Tomato Pasta

The pasta goes in dry and cooks in the sauce. No pot of water, no draining, one pan to wash.

This is what I make on the nights I want something that looks like effort and is not. The pasta nests go in flat, the tomatoes and spinach go on top, and everything cooks together until the pasta is tender and the sauce has thickened around it. Twenty minutes, most of it hands off.

It serves four generously, six if there is bread on the table.

A wide ceramic skillet holding dry egg pasta nests, fresh spinach, chopped red onion, minced garlic and whole cherry tomatoes, laid out in sections before cooking. — Everything goes in at once, dry pasta included. This is the whole recipe before it cooks.

Ingredients

Serves 4 to 6 · 5 minutes prep, 15 minutes cooking · One pan

7 egg pasta nests, tagliatelle or fettuccine, about 14 oz
2 cups cherry tomatoes
2 cups fresh spinach, packed
1 large red onion, finely chopped, about 1 1/2 cups
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 jar marinara sauce, 24 oz
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup water
2 cups grated parmesan, plus more for serving
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Fresh basil, to finish

How to make it

Lay the pasta nests flat in a wide pan with a lid, at least 10 to 12 inches. Keep them in a single layer.
Scatter the cherry tomatoes, spinach, red onion and garlic around and over the nests.
Season with salt and pepper, then drizzle the olive oil over everything.
Pour the heavy cream over the top, then the whole jar of marinara. Add the water to the empty jar, put the lid back on, shake it, and pour that in too so nothing is wasted.
Stir once, gently, so the pasta is sitting under the liquid.
Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cover and cook 12 to 15 minutes, stirring twice, until the pasta is tender and the sauce has thickened around it.
Take the pan off the heat and stir in the parmesan until it melts through.
Serve straight from the pan, with more parmesan and fresh basil.

A few notes

Any flat egg pasta sold in nests works here, whether the box says tagliatelle or fettuccine. What matters is that they lie flat in a single layer.

Check the pasta at 12 minutes. If it is not tender yet, add a splash of water, cover, and give it another two or three.

Take it off the heat while there is still a little loose sauce in the pan. It keeps thickening as it sits, and a pan that looked perfect on the stove can be stodgy by the time it reaches the table.

Stir the parmesan in off the heat. If the pan is still hot it can go grainy.

The pan does most of the work here. It needs to be wide enough for the pasta to lie flat and heavy enough to hold even heat, or the bottom catches while the top is still raw.

The filled skillet on a marble board on a kitchen table, with wooden serving spoons, vine cherry tomatoes and a small jar of basil around it.

What I use to make this

Some links below are affiliate links, which means I earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

The Caraway pan. Caraway sent me this one, and it has been the pan I reach for since. It is also the reason this recipe works at all: wide enough that seven nests lie flat in a single layer, and heavy enough that the bottom does not catch while the top is still raw. That link takes 10% off, or use the code OLYACREATIVE at checkout, which works on selected collections.
Wooden spoons. Worth saying out loud: the pan is ceramic, so use wood or silicone on it. Metal will scar the surface and you will be annoyed about it for years.
Atlas Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, the Moroccan one. This is the oil I buy and the one in the video. Two tablespoons is all that goes in, so it is worth it being a good one.
A pasta bowl, close to mine rather than the exact one. Wide and shallow, which matters more than it sounds. A deep bowl buries the tomatoes and the basil at the bottom where nobody can see them.