Creamy Red Pepper Pasta is a dish that combines the natural sweetness of roasted peppers with the richness of double cream and the umami depth of tomato purée. It proves tha few things are as comforting as a bowl of pasta coated in a velvety, deeply flavoured sauce. Unlike slow-simmered tomato sauces, this one comes together in less than 30 minutes, making it perfect for a weeknight indulgence.
Table of Contents
- Ingredient Breakdown
- Cooking the Sauce
- Choosing the Right Pasta
- Why Pasta Water is Key
- Making It Your Own
- Storing and Reheating Leftovers
- More Pasta Recipes
Ingredient Breakdown
- Extra-virgin olive oil: Enhances the depth of flavour while providing a smooth texture.
- Onion: Adds sweetness and a savoury backbone to the sauce.
- Red sweet pointed peppers (Romano peppers): The star ingredient, lending a naturally sweet and slightly smoky flavour.
- Garlic: Infuses the sauce with aromatic depth.
- Double (or triple) concentrated tomato purée: Provides a rich, caramelised tomato base in a fraction of the time.
- Water: Helps adjust the sauce consistency.
- Double cream: Creates the luxurious, velvety texture.
- Grated grana padano or parmigiano reggiano: Adds a salty, nutty richness that enhances the sauce.
- Basil leaves: Offers freshness and a subtle peppery flavour.
- Dried pasta of choice: The perfect vessel to carry the creamy sauce.
Cooking the Sauce
A great pasta dish starts with a rich, well-balanced sauce. In Creamy Red Pepper Pasta, the deep, savoury flavour comes from slowly cooking tomato purée until it caramelises. This process intensifies its sweetness while reducing acidity, creating a complex base. The red peppers add natural sweetness, while garlic and onion provide depth. The addition of double cream softens the flavours, making the sauce velvety and luxurious. Grating in a hard cheese like grana padano adds a layer of umami that ties everything together.
Unlike sauces that rely on tinned tomatoes, this method delivers a more concentrated, deeply flavoured result in less time. Cooking each ingredient in stages, softening onions, then caramelising tomato purée, and finally adding cream, ensures every layer builds on the last. The key is patience: allowing the ingredients to develop their full potential results in a sauce that coats pasta beautifully and bursts with rich, satisfying flavour.
Choosing the Right Pasta
The beauty of Creamy Red Pepper Pasta is its versatility. The sauce clings beautifully to various pasta shapes, so you can choose what suits your preference. Short pasta like rigatoni or penne works well, as the sauce fills the ridges, ensuring every bite is packed with flavour. On the other hand, long pasta like fettuccine or tagliatelle allows the creamy sauce to coat each strand evenly, offering a luxurious texture.
Cooking the pasta al dente is essential. This ensures it retains a slight bite, preventing it from becoming too soft when mixed with the sauce. Additionally, reserving some pasta water helps loosen the sauce if needed while also helping it adhere better to the pasta.
Why Pasta Water is Key
Pasta water might seem like a simple by-product of cooking, but it’s one of the most important elements in achieving a smooth, restaurant-quality sauce. The starchy water left behind after boiling pasta helps emulsify sauces, binding fats and liquids together to create a silky texture.
In Creamy Red Pepper Pasta, adding a ladleful of pasta water allows the sauce to cling to the pasta more effectively, preventing it from feeling heavy or greasy. The starch also helps thicken the sauce slightly, creating a luxurious coating without needing extra cream. To maximise its benefits, always use well-salted water. This enhances the pasta’s flavour and, by extension, the sauce. Instead of draining your pasta completely, transfer it directly into the sauce with a slotted spoon or tongs. This ensures the pasta carries just the right amount of water into the sauce, helping everything blend seamlessly into a cohesive, velvety dish.
Making It Your Own
One of the best things about Creamy Red Pepper Pasta is how easily it can be customised. However you choose to customise it, the base remains easy as ever.
- If you’d like to add protein, grilled chicken or prawns make fantastic additions. Their mild flavours complement the sauce without overpowering it.
- For a vegetarian twist, roasted aubergines or mushrooms bring an earthy depth that pairs beautifully with the creamy sauce.
- If you’re looking for a bit of heat, a pinch of red pepper flakes or a dash of hot sauce can add a gentle kick without altering the overall flavour profile.
Storing and Reheating Leftovers
While Creamy Red Pepper Pasta is best enjoyed fresh, leftovers can still be delicious if stored and reheated properly. To keep the pasta from drying out, store it in an airtight container with a splash of reserved pasta water or extra cream. This helps maintain the sauce’s silky consistency when reheated.
Reheating on the stove over low heat is the best method, as it allows the sauce to loosen up without breaking. If using a microwave, adding a tablespoon of water or cream before reheating can help restore its texture.
More Pasta Recipes
We all love pasta, there’s no denying it. So if you’re looking for more recipes just like this Creamy Red Pepper Pastae, then here you go:
- Creamy Red Pepper Pasta: It’s amazing how a little onion, garlic, tomato purée, peppers and cream can come together in mere minutes to make a delicious, deeply-flavoured sauce.
- Creamy Tomato and Harissa Pasta: This tasty pasta number is the perfect balance of flavours. It’s creamy and bright, with just a hint of spice from the harissa.
- Tomato & Red Pepper Gnocchi: A dish that brings together pillowy gnocchi and a hearty, flavour-packed sauce made from fresh, vibrant ingredients. This quick and easy vegan recipe is perfect for a weeknight dinner. It takes just 30 minutes to prepare!
- Cheesy Gnocchi Bake: This recipe combines soft, pillowy gnocchi with a rich tomato sauce and a generous layer of melted cheese, creating a meal that’s both hearty and indulgent.
- Burnt Aubergine Rigatoni: Charring aubergines over an open flame or under a hot grill intensifies their taste, creating a velvety, umami-rich sauce that clings beautifully to rigatoni.
See how I make all these recipes and more over on my Instagram!
Creamy Red Pepper Pasta
Rich and delicious. I know I say this all too often but this is my new favourite pasta sauce! It’s amazing how a little onion, garlic, tomato purée and cream can come together in mere minutes to make a delicious, deeply-flavoured sauce. This dish is definitely indulgent, but we all deserve a treat once in a while!
Unlike some of my other pasta sauce recipes, this one comes together in less than 30 minutes. Instead of slowly simmering tinned tomatoes, this recipe uses lots of double concentrated tomato purée, which, once cooked out and caramelised, provides a superb, deeply-flavourful base for the sauce. Please give this one a try – I’m certain you’ll love it!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Pasta, Vegetarian
Ingredients
- extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 4 red sweet pointed peppers (Romano peppers), thinly sliced
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 100 g good-quality double (or triple) concentrated tomato purée
- 300 ml water
- 300 ml double cream
- 50 g grated grana padano or parmigiano reggiano, plus more to serve
- 1 large handful basil leaves, thinly sliced
- 400 g dried pasta of choice
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of generously salted water to the boil over high heat. It should be sea-level salty. Meanwhile, start preparing the sauce.
- Heat a splash of extra-virgin olive oil in a separate large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and season with a good pinch of sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, around 5 minutes.
- Add the peppers and season again with a good pinch of sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, for a further 5 minutes.
- Add the garlic and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Then add the tomato purée and stir until the paste evenly coats the onions, peppers and garlic. Cook, stirring frequently, until the paste darkens and is beginning to caramelise on the bottom of the pot, 5 to 7 minutes.
- Add the water and stir to incorporate. Season with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Add the double cream, stir to combine and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, then remove the saucepan from the heat.
- Stir in the grana padano and basil. Season with sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste.
- Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to package instructions until al dente.
- Heat the saucepan with the sauce over low heat. Using a slotted spoon or spider (if using short pasta) or tongs (if using long pasta), transfer the cooked pasta to the sauce. Add a ladleful or two of the pasta cooking water and toss until the sauce nicely coats the pasta. Divide among bowls, top with a little more grana padano and serve. Enjoy!
