Creamy lemony pasta bursting with Greek style flavors, topped with honey glazed baked feta slices! A celebration of Mediterranean summer flavors that you will love, with tomatoes, olives, artichokes and herbs bringing amazing flavor.
Introducing a Fusion Pasta full of Greek Goodness!
So of course, this is quite clearly not REAL Greek food, and to be fair authentic Greek cuisine will never be the obvious place to look for great vegetarian ideas. But hacking together Greek inspired meatless dishes? We actually have sooooo much to work with.
Today we’ve ended up with a creamy lemony pasta with tomatoes, artichokes, olives and herbs topped with slabs of baked honey glazed feta! Instead of mixing the feta into the pasta, we make it into a distinct protein that sits on top, can be sliced, and just makes every bite a little different with its firm texture and caramelized honey glaze.
👩🍳 Shopping & Ingredient Notes
One thing I want to emphasize is that the measurements for the tomatoes, shallots or onions, olives, artichokes and herbs are very approximate. I used the artichokes from a small 200g jar, and the olives from a small 80g packet, but different shops will have different package sizes. My version is fairly tomato heavy because I bought smaller packs of artichokes and olives with a larger pack of tomatoes, but you can flip those ratios around as you please.
- Pasta: I’ve used tagliatelle here, which is really nice with a creamy sauce, but you can use any pasta shape that you wish.
- Tomatoes: Cherry, grape, any baby tomatoes. While it’s not essential to buy expensive tomatoes, it does help if they are reasonably tasty. They aren’t being cooked or given any special treatment, so the flavor that goes in is the flavor you end up with.
- Artichokes: You’re looking for a jar of marinated artichokes – the kind stored in oil with herbs. You want to drain the oil away, but don’t rinse or wipe. The oil that’s sticking to the artichokes is welcome to stay and will add flavor to the dish. If you want to swap in artichokes that are soaked in water or frozen artichokes, go ahead, but I’d suggest adding some dried seasonings to the recipe to compensate.
- Olives: I love kalamata olives for anything Greek, but feel free to use green or plain black olives. You could even throw in a deli mix of stuffed or marinated olives. All additional flavor is welcome here. You just want to make sure the olives are pitted, otherwise you’ll need to chop them.
- Shallots and garlic: Important for base flavor, you could use red onion if you wish.
- Lemon: We add some lemon zest to the cream sauce and some lemon juice is squeezed over the whole dish at the end, which adds a really nice finishing touch. I prefer to squeeze it on top so that you taste it more in some bites than others, but you can mix your juice and zest into the sauce if you prefer.
- Vegetable stock and cream: These make the base of the sauce. The cream should be double or heavy cream, otherwise the sauce will be too runny. If you only have a lighter cream, you may want to just reduce the amount of vegetable stock and increase the amount of cream.
- Herbs: I like a combination of chopped parsley and mint.
- Feta cheese: Any old block of feta, it doesn’t need to be fancy.
- Honey: for glazing the feta. Runny or set will work equally well.
The Workflow: Simple but not Speedy
This will be around 45 minutes start to finish, because you need to have every ingredient prepped before you start cooking. You may get to a point where you feel confident overlapping the processes a little more, and then it could be a 30 minute dinner, but that will take a few tries.
A full printable recipe card is coming your way, but this is a quick walk through of what is involved:
More recipes with feta
If you love to make vegetarian dinners centered around feta cheese, these recipes are also worth a look!
Greek Pasta with Honey Glazed Feta
Ingredients
- olive oil, for cooking
- 9 oz (250 g) pasta, I used tagliatelle
- 2 shallots (or 1/2 of a red onion), diced
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- ½ cup (80 g) kalamata olives, green olives are fine too
- 1 cup (200 g) marinated artichokes , drained but not rinsed – reserve the oil
- 10 oz (280 g) cherry or baby plum tomatoes, halved
- 1 cup (240 ml) vegetable stock
- ⅔ cup (160 ml) heavy (double) cream
- ½ lemon, zested
- 1 handful fresh herbs, I like to use mint and parsley
Honey Glazed Feta
- 9 oz (200 g) block of feta
- 1 tbsp honey
- olive oil, for drizzling
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C / 360F. Ensure that all of your pasta ingredients are gathered and measured before you get the feta cooking – this ensures that the feta is ready around the same time as the pasta and neither sits out for too long.
- Prepare the feta. Cut once widthways and again lengthways to make four slices. Place these in a lightly oiled baking tray and drizzle with the olive oil and honey. Add salt and pepper to taste and then place in the oven for 20 minutes. We'll use this 20 minutes to prepare the pasta.9 oz block of feta, 1 tbsp honey, olive oil
- In a large saute pan, heat a glug of the oil that you drained off the artichokes (or just use olive oil if your artichokes weren't stored in oil). Add the red onion and cook until slightly softened, then add the garlic and cook for a few more moments until fragrant.2 shallots (or 1/2 of a red onion), olive oil, 4 cloves garlic
- Add the olives and the artichokes to the pan, saute for another minute to get them warmed through.1 cup marinated artichokes, 1/2 cup kalamata olives
- Add the vegetable stock to the pan. Bring to a simmer.1 cup vegetable stock, 2/3 cup heavy (double) cream
- Add the cream and stir until it's mixed through and warmed, but don't allow it to boil (we don't want the cream to split)
- Add the lemon zest and cherry tomatoes to the pan, then cover and allow the sauce to sit while you cook the pasta. The sauce will feel a little runny, but don't worry – once we add the pasta it will thicken up.10 oz cherry or baby plum tomatoes, 1/2 lemon
- Prepare the pasta according to package instructions, then drain and add to the pan with the sauce. Add the herbs. Toss through until the pasta is well incorporated into the sauce.9 oz pasta, 1 handful fresh herbs
- Remove the feta from the oven. It should be golden on top, and browned around the sides. Use a spatula to carefully remove each slice and use it to top the pasta.
- Squeeze lemon juice over the pasta and serve.
