Preparing pasta gives you the ultimate license to get creative with clever combinations of noodles, sauces, toppings, and other accouterments. Whether you’re boiling a pot of spaghetti for a classic red sauce with meatballs or perfecting your pesto recipe for the ultimate in fresh, herbal tastes, there’s a pasta dish to suit just about anyone’s appetite. With many different options of fresh garnishes that you should be adding to your pasta, there might even be some that you’ve previously disregarded or overlooked. Although fresh basil is just about the darling of any pasta dish, reaching for a few leaves of arugula will deepen the complexity of your pasta’s flavor profile in a delightful and delicious new way.
Arugula is a cruciferous leafy green characterized by a distinctly peppery taste, and it contains a variety of essential nutrients, including calcium, potassium, and vitamins K and A, among others. It works especially well to provide a pop of flavor to dishes with milder cream sauces, such as a crockpot chicken Alfredo recipe or a linguine with garlic and parmesan cheese. In addition to rich and creamy pastas, arugula is also an ideal green for an elevated pesto sauce or as a complement to a spicy arrabbiata sauce or cacio e pepe pasta.
Adding arugula to your favorite pasta dishes
Adding fresh arugula to your pasta is as simple as can be. For starters, it works great as a garnish. Take a few leaves and either roughly chop or rip them up into pieces by hand before casually sprinkling over plated pasta with sauce — it takes mere seconds and adds such a layer of depth to your dish. When adding arugula to pesto for a peppery kick, you can choose to add just a hint of the green or go full-force and completely swap in arugula for the standard basil in a classic pesto recipe. Lemon and arugula are also a common flavor pairing, which bodes well for adding a fresh handful to dishes like pasta al limone.
If you’ve got a spicy pasta recipe that could use a delicious and nutritious kick of peppery greens, try sauteeing a portion of arugula to enhance its natural flavor and then mix it into your dish. Try adding sauteed arugula to a cacio e pepe pasta using vegetable-based noodles for even more nutrient rich goodness. Even simple butter noodles with garlic powder or minced fresh garlic would benefit from either raw or sauteed arugula mixed into the dish.
