Pasta With Caramelized Peppers, Anchovies and Ricotta Recipe (2024)

For those who are not fans of anchovies, a similar amount of chopped oil cured black olives can provide a nice umami background for this type of dish.

Not sure why alot pasta recipes call for 12 oz of pasta. I have never seen it sold that way.

It's not possible to caramelize red bell pepper in 15 minutes. The anchovy and garlic need to come in after the red bell pepper is caramelized, or their flavors are lost. The total dish has no coherence. There's not many dishes that can't be saved by ricotta, but this is one. It's edible, but pedestrian.

I caramelized the peppers first with a large smashed clove of garlic and a 1/4 teaspoon of powdered rosemary. Then when almost caramelized I added the anchovies and roughly chopped garlic cloves(3 large) then deglazed with vermouth. Squeezed half a small lemon.Added zest of one lemon at the end with the fresh herbs!

Scrumptious, elegant dish, and fun to cook. Next time I will double the peppers (yum) and probably use even more anchovies. Do opt for the mint. But NEVER add garlic at the beginning of a thorough saute unless you enjoy burnt garlic. (I do not. This is my number one argument with most recipe writers. BEWARE.) And please note that the pasta in the finished dish is brown from being tossed with all the caramel, not blonde as in the photo. Just FYI.

Kite Hill makes a delicious non-dairy ricotta. You can find it at Whole Foods and other stores. Otherwise, consider a non-dairy yogurt.

First time, I followed the recipe exactly and it was delicious. Second time I added a medium zucchini and yellow squash, cut the same size as the peppers, about halfway thru cooking. Increased pasta to a full 16-oz box, ricotta to a full cup and doubled the scallions. About a minute before tossing the pepper mixture into the pasta, added about 3/4 cup of sliced cherry tomatoes for a little hit of acid. Washed down with a bottle of rose. Even better the second time! Will make this year round.

You start by cooking pasta al dente - and then do 20 minutes of other cooking before draining it?

deep umami! I used 4 oz. bowties, goat cheese instead of ricotta. Kept all other amounts and ingredients as written. Was happy with ratio of pasta to veg. Also, I agree with other poster, you MUST add garlic and anchovies AFTER the peppers are caramelized! They will stick and/or burn if added near the beginning!

Don’t use any cheese. It is delicious without it or use a nut based cheese such as cashew. I prefer no cheese and I roast the peppers.

I made it tonight for dinner. I really like it but I think it could use more peppers or less pasta!! Taste combinations are wonderful. Pasta seems to overwhelm the amount of sauce and the box I used was only 9 oz not 12.

"Not sure why a lot of pasta recipes call for 12 oz of pasta. I've never seen it sold that way." Good question.It's calculated on oz.-per-serving, usually 2 or 3 oz. This recipe was for 4 to 6 servings. So 4 3-oz. "larger" servings = 12 oz. While 6 2-oz."smaller" ones = 12 oz.Whatever the shape (from fettucine to rotini to orzo), I always (literally) weigh out 5 oz.: 2 oz. for me, 3 oz. for my husband. (And use half of the other ingredients.)

Followed the recipe pretty much as is and it was amazing. There was three of us and zero was left and we were looking for more. The ricotta was perfect and the sauce was not heavy.

If you start the pasta (step 1) before you start the rest, then it will be done well before the rest of dish and start to cool. Probably better to start the pasta when you add the peppers to the pan.

Delicious and easy!! A previous cook suggested 3 peppers, so went with that and good call! Could have done 4 peppers without being too much. Added the garlic and anchovies toward the end of the peppers cooking, which retained that anchovy goodness. Rather than keeping the pepper and ricotta separate, I added the peppers to the cheese and added a little warm pasta water to loosen up the cheese. Once the pasta was drained, added pepper-cheese mixture and lots of basil. Very good!

Try oil cured black olives to sub anchovies Blistered cherry tomatoes in addition to peppers Use wine to deglaze

I put lemon zest, not grated but coarsely chopped in the pasta water, then added it to the finished dish. It adds great flavor! No need for butter in the pepper saute. Subbed shallots for scallions. Very, very nice.

Very very tasty. Maybe add cherry tomatoes? Added mushrooms, and subbed anchovy for miso paste. Used more wine than called for.

this is awesome! eating leftovers right now. I followed the advice of others for adding the garlic layer. I think I cooked the peppers down longer than the recipe said. absolutely delicious!

I view ricotta as cottage cheese that just didn't have the drive to form respectable curds of any size.If I decide to try this, it's gonna be with grated parmesan instead.

Made this as directed - delicious - although my husband and I scarfed the whole recipe as a main - I can’t see it being sufficient for 6 people though!

This was great. If I make again I will add some toasted pibe nuts

Like others have commented, 12 oz of pasta is a difficult measurement. I used 8 oz but left everything else as written with maybe just a little extra ricotta and it seemed like the right proportion. This was tasty and we ate it all up, but I don’t know if I loved it enough to make it again.

Echoing Robin and Renee here: you can't add garlic first and then caramelize something on medium-high heat for 10-15 minutes without burning the garlic to a crisp. I have cooked and loved Melissa Clark's recipes for decades so I foolishly followed the directions on this. Which ruined beautiful garlic from the farmer's market. I am surprised that nobody in the test kitchen caught this. Add the garlic AFTER the peppers are fully carmelized, and turn the heat to medium-low!

This dish had all the right stuff . . . but it screamed for more! Luckily we have lots of fresh veggies in the garden, so in addition to the peppers from the garden, in went some chunks of summer squash and Patty pan squash and shish*to peppers for good measure. Yummmm. Great main dish.

I eliminated the anchovies. I put the peppers and garlic in a large bowl. I added 3 T of olive oil, salt and red pepper and tossed well. Then spread them in a single layer on a prepared baking sheet, and roasted at 425 for 30 minutes, stirring once. Then I followed steps 4, 5 and 6 as written. Delicious!

When are you supposed to remove the rosemary sprigs? I like the flavor of rosemary but it never seems edible.

My family said that this was a winner! They’d be happy if they got this in a restaurant. I added sautéed Italian sausage to the dish.

How to solve an ongoing problem: Mu husband must be on a low carb diet so we use Healthy Noodles made from hearts of palm. They do not get cooked, only heated. So every time a recipe calls for pasta water I am in a quandary. What can I substitute?

I used anchovy paste and it was delicious! I love the paste because it’s always in my fridge, ready to go.