This is the perfect cream sauce for spinach pasta! Flavorful, garlicky, cheesy, with a hint of nutmeg to perfectly complement the spinach infused pasta noodles. You can add whatever toppings you wish to make this work for your family.
👩🍳 Christine’s Notes: Why this is the best sauce for spinach pasta
Buying bright green spinach pasta makes a fun change from time to time! But what do we do with it? It can be tricky to get this right so I’ve set out here to make the perfect sauce for spinach pasta. I wanted the spinach flavor to have a chance to shine, with flavors that complement, and visually I’d prefer for the sauce not to compete with the green color. So this simple cream sauce is where I landed!
White wine, garlic, cheese and nutmeg are the perfect elements within this sauce, infusing with the subtle spinach flavors perfectly.
I love this with roasted tomatoes but it is definitely an adaptable base recipe – there are plenty of other ways you can go with it! Mushrooms, peas, sauteed asparagus?
🛒 Choosing your ingredients: what’s important + what can flex
This makes for a very flexible meal – master the sauce and you can prepare it in all sorts of ways.
- Spinach pasta: I’ve used a fresh spinach linguine here, but a dried spinach pasta should work fine too!
- Cream: Double cream (heavy cream in the US) is what you’re after for a nice thick sauce.
- White wine: Adds a ton of flavor, but if you need to leave this out I would suggest vegetable stock or broth.
- Cheese: I’m using pecorino which works well. Any strong hard cheese will work – parmesan / vegetarian hard cheese, or even a melty hard cheese such as gruyere.
- The tomatoes and basil make for a lovely, summery interpretation of this recipe but the base recipe of spinach pasta + cream sauce can be used alongside any other fillings you wish.
Workflow tips
- To make this as efficiently as possible, you want to get the tomatoes into the oven straight away – before even gathering or prepping any other ingredients. The tomatoes need about 30 minutes to cook so that gives you enough time to prep and prepare the sauce and the boil the pasta.
- This becomes a 15 minute meal if you don’t make the roasted tomatoes. Instead, add some frozen peas or broccoli for the vegetable component. Just cook it in the pasta water and you’re good to go.
Other recipes to try with spinach pasta
Cream Sauce for Spinach Pasta
Ingredients
- 10 oz (300 g) fresh spinach pasta, roughly 200-250g of dried spinach pasta
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1-2 tbsp olive oil or butter, for cooking
- ½ cup (120 ml) white wine
- 1 cup (240 ml) double (heavy) cream
- 1 cup (110 g) grated cheese, parmesan, pecorino or gruyere are all good choices here
- ⅛ tsp nutmeg
Roasted Tomatoes
- 10 oz (300 g) cherry or plum tomatoes
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- salt and pepper , to taste
- fresh basil leaves , to taste
Instructions
- First, prepare the cherry tomatoes. Add them to a pan and toss with olive oil, garlic and salt and pepper to taste. Place in the oven at 180C / 360F for around 30 minutes, or until they are reduced, jammy and a little charred.10 oz cherry or plum tomatoes, 2 cloves garlic, salt and pepper, 2 Tbsp olive oil
- When the tomatoes are nearly done, make a start on the cream sauce. In a deep saute pan or shallow casserole dish, saute the garlic in a little olive oil or butter until soft. Add the white wine to the pan and let it bubble for a few minutes until it starts to reduce.2 cloves garlic, 1-2 tbsp olive oil or butter, 1/2 cup white wine
- Add the cream, cheese and nutmeg. Turn the heat down to a very low setting and gently mix the sauce until the cheese is melted through. Remove from the heat and set aside.1 cup double (heavy) cream, 1 cup grated cheese, 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- Boil the spinach pasta according to package instructions.10 oz fresh spinach pasta
- Once the pasta is cooked, drain it and add to the pan with the sauce. Toss to combine. It will seem like you have too much sauce but the pasta will soon drink it up!
- Mix some basil leaves through the pasta, then add the tomatoes to the top and serve.fresh basil leaves
