An Italian-inspired pasta with coastal flavours galore! This easy, quick and delicious Sardine Pasta makes the perfect weeknight dinner. Fresh sardine fillets and spaghetti tossed in a healthy tomato basil sauce spiked with capers and olives. Yum!
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🐟 Easy Sardine Pasta For Weeknights
When I source fresh sardine fillets from my fishmonger, I invariably always make this glorious pasta. Sardine fillets are butterflied, boneless sardines that cook in mere minutes. Why is this dish the perfect weeknight dinner? Because ..
- It only has a handful of ingredients, most of which can be found in your pantry.
- Ready in under 30 minutes.
- One-pan, minimal cooking involved.
- Easy, light and healthy.
- Packed with loads of umami and rich flavour.
📝 Ingredients
Most ingredients you need for this delicious sardine pasta are probably in your pantry and the rest in your fridge. Here is what you will need,
Sardines - Fresh sardine fillets are easily available at fishmongers. You can also use sardines in tins or jars. See notes for substitution adjustments.
Tomato Sugo - This is just bottled rich Italian tomato sauce cooked with ripe tomatoes, onion, garlic and salt. I use one that is infused with basil for a lovely flavour. If you can't find sugo, substitute with passata and fresh basil leaves.
Tapenade - This is an olive spread made with olives, capers and often anchovies. It is zippy, salty and briny and adds a punchy flavour to the pasta. If you can't find it, substitute with 6-8 finely chopped green and kalamata olives.
Pasta - I use spaghetti for this recipe. Any long pasta works really well. If substituting, try linguini or pappardelle.
Flavour makers - You will also need garlic, chilli flakes, capers, salt, pepper and parmesan.
Herbs - Parsley and optionally extra basil will really lift this pasta up.
🍝 How To Make Sardine Pasta
- Add oil to a non-stick pan on high.
- Add sardine fillets and cook on each side for a few minutes until browned.
3. Flip sardine fillets gently with tongs and cook each side until browned.
4. Add garlic and chilli and cook for a few seconds until fragrant.
5. Add tomato sugo and diced tomatoes to the pan.
6. Add capers, mix and cook for a few minutes.
7. Add tapenade.
8. Mix and cook for a few minutes until fragrant and heated through.
9. Add cooked spaghetti to the pan.
10. Toss and mix well until pasta is thoroughly coated with sauce. Cook for a few minutes until piping hot.
🍽️ Storage & Serving Suggestions
Storage
Cooked pasta sauce keeps well in the fridge in an air-tight lidded container for up to 2 days. If you are making ahead, prep and store pasta sauce and cook the pasta fresh when serving. Freezing sardine pasta sauce is okay but not recommended as the sardines will completely disintegrate on freezing and reheating.
What to serve with Sardine Pasta?
This is a lovely, saucy, seafood pasta. As such, good Garlic Bread is a great accompaniment. Try these recipes for an Italian feast.
- Sicilian Brussels Sprouts - These chilli garlic fried brussels sprouts add a lovely green, light element to a seafood pasta dinner.
- Cauliflower Grandma Pie - A delicious, deep dish pizza with the best buttery cauliflower crumb. Try this grandma pie with the sardine pasta instead of plain old garlic bread.
- Burnt Basque Cheesecake - Round up your fabulous Italian menu with a perfect Basque Cheesecake. Super easy blender recipe ready in minutes!
👩🏻🍳 Recipe FAQs
For this recipe, you will need sardine fillets. You can either buy sardine fillets from the fish markets or fillet a whole sardine yourself. It is very easy to do. I usually follow this sardine filleting method.
You can use tinned sardines to make this pasta. If you do, remember you don't need to brown and cook sardines at the start. Simply add them to the pan with chilli, garlic and tomato sugo and continue cooking as per the recipe.
❤️ More Pasta Recipes To Love
Recipe
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Sardine Pasta
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 400 g fresh sardine fillets
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 teaspoon red chilli flakes
- 400 g tomato basil sugo
- 400 g canned diced tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons capers
- 1 tablespoon olive tapenade
- Flaky salt, to taste
- Black pepper, to taste
- ½ cup fresh parsley, packed and chopped
- 300 g raw pasta, spaghetti or linguini
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan
Instructions
- Cook spaghetti in salted water as per packet instructions. Drain all but some cooking water and set aside.
- Heat oil in a large, shallow non-stick pan on high.
- Add sardine fillets and cook on each side for approximately 3 minutes until browned. Make sure you use tongs to flip them very gently.
- Reduce heat to medium. Add garlic and chilli flakes and sauté for a few seconds until fragrant.
- Add tomato sugo and diced tomatoes. Mix lightly making sure not to disturb the sardine too much. Add capers, salt and pepper and cook for 4-5 minutes until bubbling.
- Add cooked spaghetti and a tablespoon or two of cooking water. Toss and mix gently until pasta is coated with the sauce. Check and adjust seasoning.
- Garnish with parsley and freshly grated parmesan. Serve immediately.
- Add tapenade, mix gently and cook for 5-6 minutes until heated through and fragrant.
Can I use fresh tomato puree?
Instead of Tomato Sugo? yes, you can. But you might need to adjust final salt and perhaps add extra garlic. If subbing fresh tomato puree for both sugo and chopped tomatoes, I would suggest adding tomato puree + 1 or 2 large very ripe tomatoes chopped up. Sugo is very concentrated, often partially sun dried and hence thick and luscious. Fresh tomato puree is softer in its umami flavour and very thin in consistency. You will have to cook down the puree to a thick, dark consistency to reach the pasta sauce stage. Hope that helps x
Made this for dinner tonight and it was so easy and satisfying. The fresh sardines were excellent in there but I think a really good quality canned tuna in olive oil would be delicious too.