Silky Spinach Spaghetti with Burrata

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Today’s recipe is a vision in green. This Silky Spinach Spaghetti features al dente strands of golden spaghetti coated in a rich emerald green spinach sauce topped with a creamy ball of burrata and finished with a sprinkling of arugula, crushed red pepper flakes, and black pepper. Talk about eating your greens, this vibrant platter of pasta contains nearly a pound of baby spinach. But don’t let the veggie content fool you. This dish tastes every bit as decadent as your favorite plate of carbonara. So let’s make it.

What I love about this dish, aside from its off-the-charts iron content, is how quickly it comes together. This Silky Spinach Spaghetti goes from recipe to table in 30 minutes flat. So yes, this is a weeknight wonder if there ever was one. And the other thing I love about this dish is this is a rock solid method for making all sorts of vegerific pasta dishes. You could do the same with broccoli, carrots, or sweet potato. Basically, if it can be pureed it can be a pasta sauce.

This recipe starts, as so many pasta recipes do, with garlic. Peel four cloves of garlic. This is yet another reason why I love this recipe – no mincing. Just pop those whole cloves of garlic into a large pot of cold water. Place the pot over high heat and bring it to a boil. Liberally salt the water once boiling and take it off of the heat. Immediately add the spinach and wait for it to wilt.

Bringing the water up to a boil while the garlic cloves are in there will mellow the sharpness of the raw garlic and also give it a slightly more creamy texture. But when it comes time to add the spinach, we will take the pot off of the heat. Spinach is very delicate, it doesn’t need much encouragement to wilt. You will notice it starts to shrink the second it hits the water. That’s why this recipe calls for so much spinach. The stuff decreases in volume like you wouldn’t believe.

Once the spinach is nice and wilted, drain the greens using a fine mesh strainer lined with a piece of cheesecloth. The cheesecloth is there so we can form it into a bundle and squeeze out any excess moisture that might be lurking in the greens. Transfer the spinach to a blender and add a diced avocado. Think of the avocado as a textural insurance policy. Nothing coats better than pureed avocado and that’s just what we want in a pasta sauce.

Once the spinach and avocado are in a blender or food processor, you will find the mixture is far too dense to mix properly. That’s where the cream comes in. Set the machine to low and slowly stream in a cup of cream. I used full-fat cream, but half and half would also work. Finally, give the sauce a taste and season with salt. I would start with a teaspoon and carefully work your way up from there if you think it needs more. And once the sauce is done, this recipe is pretty much finished. How nice is that?!

Cook up about a pound of your favorite brand of spaghetti until al dente. Then drain the pasta and transfer it to a large bowl. How large? Large enough that you can really fling that pasta around without making a mess. Pour in the spinach sauce and toss until every strand of pasta is coated. Taste and season with salt once again. Make a habit of checking the seasoning of your dishes every time you add something to them.

Once your Silky Spinach Spaghetti is where you want it, pile it onto a platter and top it with a giant ball of burrata. Sprinkle the pasta with arugula for a little bit of bitterness. And finish the dish off with a liberal sprinkling of crushed red pepper flakes and coarsely ground black pepper.

And that’s everything you need to know about this Silky Spinach Spaghetti. A lightning-quick vision in green that satisfies the palette as much as it does the eye.

Enjoy!