Cook time: 30 minutes
Calling all olive lovers! THIS is the recipe that will change your life. Even if you don't love olives, this dish is pretty spectacular. This Mediterranean inspired dish comes packed with so much flavor from the olives, garlic, tomatoes, and herbs, that your taste buds will be flipping out. Considering the complexity of taste in this dish, it is pretty easy to make, and it's a one pan meal which means not a ton of clean up! Like many of my pasta dishes, I use a legume/bean pasta instead of a wheat pasta, just for the added protein. For this dish I used a red-lentil pasta which worked out great. Happy cooking!
1. Boil the pasta: Bring a large pot of water to boil. Generously salt the water, and cook pasta to package instructions.
2. Prep other ingredients: Cut tomatoes in halves, dice garlic, chop up parsley, and chop olives into very small pieces. Don't worry if the olives get mashed. Juice one lemon and set the juice aside.
3. Roast the tomatoes: Heat up pan on medium/high heat with the olive oil. Once pan is heated, toss in halved tomatoes and stir occasionally for about 4-5 minutes until they are tender and losing some of their structure.
4. Toss in other ingredients: Add in lemon juice, garlic, olives, parsley, oregano, salt, dusting of black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 3 minutes. Then, toss in the arugula and cook for about one minute until moderately wilted.
5. Add pasta: Turn off the heat for the pan and dump your drained pasta into the pan with your other ingredients and mix for about a minute. After that you are ready to plate and finish off with a sprig of parsley if you want to look classy.
NOTES:
- I used red lentil pasta for this recipe. I love that the noodles tend to be come out more al dente and hold their structure quite well. However, any pasta would work with this dish, even different shapes. Have fun with it!
- Like most of my recipes I like to stress that this is very modifiable. Feel free to add more or less of anything. You could go up with the arugula, down with the garlic, whatever you are feeling!
-Make sure not to overcook when you are roasting the garlic - It will loose some of its flavor.
-If you absolutely can't find kalamata olives for this dish, you could use canned black olives. I have used black before in a pinch and it worked out. Kalamata are definitely ideal, but you can make it work without them.
