Pasta alla puttanesca: quick sauce with olives, capers and chili
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Puttanesca sauce
A great, quick sauce to make while the pasta cooks, with ingredients typical of southern Italy. It seems to have become popular in the 1960s. There are several theories about its cheeky name, “streetwalker’s pasta”. One says the women who worked in the brothels (state-licensed until 1958) could only shop once a week, so they relied on dishes made from pantry staples. We share lots of tips like this for cooking from the pantry at our cooking classes in Tuscany!
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings
- Cuisine: Italian
- Diet: Gluten-Free, Vegetarian
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 1 chili pepper
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 2 teaspoons capers, rinsed and drained
- 20–25 black olives
- 1 anchovy fillet (optional)
- 300 ml (1¼ cups) bottled or canned crushed tomatoes
- A pinch of dried oregano
- Pasta for 6 (about 500 g / 1 lb)
- Grated Parmesan, to serve (optional)
Instructions
- Put the pasta on to cook in plenty of boiling salted water.
- In a good swirl of olive oil, stir-fry the chili, garlic, capers, olives and anchovy (if using) for 1 minute.
- Add the tomatoes and oregano and bring to a boil.
- Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring now and then.
- Toss with the al dente pasta and add Parmesan if you like.
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