After taking a bit of a hiatus over the summer, we’ve recently gotten back to making homemade pasta! The latest type we tried out was frigitelli, a short and frilly shape that makes for a fun piece of pasta to bite into. We decided to pair it with a hearty and simple sauce, mixing in pesto, veggies, and pieces of fresh mozzarella. The result was this nice dish, which made good use of this interesting pasta shape and let us pack a lot into a bowl of pasta without relying on meat. If you’re interested in making these noodles from scratch, read on!
You’ll need:
- Semolina flour
- 2 zucchini
- A yellow onion
- Olive oil
- Red pepper flakes
- A lemon
- A 10-ounce package of cherry tomatoes
- An 8-ounce package of fresh mozzarella balls
- Parmesan
- Mint
- Pesto sauce – either a 6.5 ounce jar of pesto, or if you want to make it from scratch gather up:
- Pine nuts
- Basil
- Garlic
To make your friggitelli, follow the first three steps here, except you’ll want to attach your friggitelli die to the stand mixer (we got our from Pastidea), then run the mixer at a 4 speed and cut off individual pieces of pasta once they’re around 2-3 inches long.
When you’re ready to start preparing the pasta, take your cherry tomatoes and cut them all in half, then do the same with all your mozzarella balls. Place the mozzarella and tomatoes in a bowl and mix them with some olive oil, red pepper flakes and salt, then set this aside while you prepare everything else.
If you’re planning to make pesto from scratch you can do that now – just follow the first three steps here.
Now quarter your zucchini, slice your onion thinly, and place them both into a large skillet with 1/4 cup of olive oil plus some red pepper flakes and salt. Cook over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes, stirring only a few times.
In the meantime, cook your friggitelli in salted water for 5 minutes, then drain and return the pasta to the pot it was cooking in. Stir in the pesto, then the zucchini and onions, then the juice from half your lemon plus 1/4 cup of chopped mint leaves and 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan.
Dish up individual servings of pasta, then top with some of the mozzarella and tomatoes and more grated Parmesan.
The hardest part here is mixing the pasta dough and making the friggitelli, but once you’ve done that, you only need to slice and dice some veggies and mozzarella, then sauté the vegetables, make your pesto (or even easier, scoop it our of a jar) and finally cook your pasta and the whole dish comes together. We liked the variety of things that this pasta had: veggies, cheese, and a pesto that pairs well with everything and clings to the grooves of the friggitelli nicely. The shape was really interesting and fun, and it made for a good backdrop to this recipe. We enjoyed all the different flavors here, and even if you don’t feel like making noodles from scratch this is a really good recipe to pair with any pasta, whether it’s homemade or from a box.