Pasta With Broccoli (Pasta Con Broccoli)

I love pasta, and I love broccoli. Putting them together in this Pasta With Broccoli recipe (pasta con broccoli) makes the perfect combination. This is a simple dish -- the ingredients are broccoli, lemon, crushed red pepper, garlic, and parmesan. But don't let the short ingredient list fool you -- this is one of those dishes that proves you don't need a pantry full of exotic ingredients to make something truly satisfying.

It's the kind of recipe that has been feeding Italian families for generations, and for good reason. As I've discovered time and time again when it comes to pasta dishes, the simplest ones are the best. This recipe for Pasta with Broccoli is no exception. The pop of flavour from the lemon and red pepper brings the broccoli to life and makes this the kind of dish you'll return to over and over again.

Jump to:

• The Italian Tradition of Pasta Con Broccoli
• Ingredients
• Choosing the Right Pasta Shape
• Preparing The Broccoli
• Cooking The Pasta With Broccoli
• Wrap-Up
• Recipe

The Italian Tradition of Pasta Con Broccoli

Pasta con broccoli is a dish rooted in the Italian tradition of making something extraordinary out of almost nothing. In southern Italy especially, cooks have been combining pasta with whatever vegetables are in season, tossed in good olive oil and garlic, for centuries. It's peasant food in the best possible sense of the word -- humble ingredients elevated through technique and care.

The idea is simple: let the quality of each ingredient shine by not burying it under heavy sauces or a dozen competing flavours. When you have fresh broccoli, good olive oil, real parmesan, and a clove of garlic that smells like it was pulled from the ground this morning, you don't need much else.

What I love about this approach is that it forces you to be intentional. You can't hide behind a jarred sauce or a packet of seasoning mix. Every step matters, from how you cook the garlic to when you add the lemon. That might sound intimidating, but it's actually the opposite.

Once you understand the basics of building flavour with oil, garlic, and pasta water, you can apply that technique to dozens of different pasta dishes. It's one of the most useful things I learned in my career, and it's the foundation of this recipe.

Ingredients

Whenever you have a simple dish with few ingredients, the ingredients you use have to be of great quality. There is nothing for poor-quality ingredients to hide behind.

• Broccoli: When making pasta with broccoli (pasta con broccoli), use fresh broccoli, not frozen. Fresh broccoli has a better texture and holds up to sauteing without turning to mush. Frozen broccoli releases too much water and will leave you with a soggy mess instead of the slightly charred, tender florets you're after.
• Aromatics: Use fresh lemon and garlic. If you have it, fresh chilli is the way to go as well. When I made this, I only had dry chilli. It turned out fine, but it would have been better with fresh chilli.
• Cheese: Use good quality parmesan. Do not use Kraft shaker parm -- it won't have the right taste, and it won't melt properly. If you want to try something different, pecorino Romano is a fantastic substitute. It's sharper and saltier than parmesan, with a slightly more assertive flavour that pairs beautifully with broccoli and garlic. I sometimes use a mix of both -- half parmesan for the creamy meltability, half pecorino for the punch. Either way, grate it fresh. Pre-grated cheese from a bag has anti-caking agents that prevent it from melting smoothly.

Additional Ingredients

Other than the broccoli and pasta, the ingredients for this recipe are:

• Crushed red pepper flakes
• Thinly sliced garlic
• Salt
• Parmesan cheese
• Butter
• Olive oil

Note: See the recipe for the measurements at the end of this post. Organize the ingredients before making the pasta because things will happen quickly once you get going.

Choosing the Right Pasta Shape

I used rotini for this recipe, and there's a reason for that. Pasta shape matters more than most people think, especially in a dish like this where the sauce is light and oil-based. You want a shape with ridges, grooves, or curves that can catch and hold onto the sauce and the tiny bits of garlic and broccoli.

Rotini is perfect because those spirals trap the flavour in every bite. Orecchiette is another excellent choice -- those little ear-shaped cups practically scoop up the broccoli pieces. Penne rigate, rigatoni, or fusilli would all work well too.

What you want to avoid is long, smooth pasta like spaghetti or fettuccine. Without a thick, clingy sauce, the flavour just slides right off those noodles and pools at the bottom of the bowl. Trust me, I've made that mistake. The short, textured shapes give you a much better flavour-to-pasta ratio in each forkful, and that's what you're after with a dish this simple. If you enjoy learning about how pasta and sauce pairings work, this is a great dish to experiment with.

Preparing The Broccoli

Cutting: When cutting broccoli or cauliflower, cut from the bottom. Only cut through the stem to prevent a big mess and keep your florets intact. Cut the broccoli into bite-sized pieces. In total, you want four cups of broccoli florets.

Blanching: The broccoli has to be blanched before being added to the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add the broccoli and cook for four minutes. The key here is to not overcook it. Four minutes is enough to take the raw edge off while keeping the broccoli bright green and slightly firm.

It's going to cook further when you saute it in the pan, so you want it a little underdone at this stage. If you blanch it until it's soft, it will turn to mush when you toss it with the pasta, and you'll lose that pleasant bite that makes this dish so good.

Reserve: Scoop the broccoli out of the water and set it aside. Save the water and use it to cook your pasta for a little extra flavour. That broccoli water is now seasoned and full of starch, which is going to help your sauce come together later. This is one of those little tricks that separates a good pasta dish from a great one.

Cooking The Pasta With Broccoli

Boil the Pasta: Bring the large pot of water back to a boil, add the pasta and set a timer according to the instructions on the package.

Preheat Pan: Once the timer hits five minutes, put a large skillet on medium-high heat. Let it heat up, then add the olive oil and butter.

Saute Aromatics: Once the butter starts to foam, add the garlic. Cook for one minute. This is the moment where patience really pays off. You want the garlic golden and fragrant, not brown and bitter. The technique here is similar to making aglio e olio -- you're infusing the oil with garlic flavour, and that flavoured oil becomes your sauce.

Keep the heat at medium-high and watch the garlic closely. It can go from perfect to burnt in about fifteen seconds, so stay by the stove. Add the crushed red pepper flakes and cook for another thirty seconds. The heat will bloom the oils in the pepper flakes, releasing their flavour into the garlic oil.

Add Broccoli: Put the broccoli in the pan, and saute for two minutes.

Create Sauce: Add a cup of the pasta water and the lemon zest to the pan, put it back on the heat, bring it to a boil and reduce it by half its volume. That starchy pasta water is going to emulsify with the olive oil and butter, creating a silky, light sauce that coats everything beautifully. This is the real secret of Italian pasta cooking -- the pasta water does the heavy lifting.

Combine: Drain the pasta and add it to the pan. Toss in the parmesan cheese and salt. Mix well.

Finish: Take the pan off the heat, add the lemon juice, toss, taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper as needed.

Wrap-Up

Pasta with Broccoli should be creamy, lemony, spicy, and flavourful. It is the perfect weeknight pasta dish because it comes together so quickly. Once you get comfortable with the technique of building a sauce from garlic, oil, and pasta water, you'll find yourself reaching for this recipe on busy nights when you want something satisfying without a lot of fuss.

Variations to Bulk it Up: You can also add some proteins to the dish such as shredded chicken, sausage, cooked salmon, or tuna. Each one takes this from a light dinner to a heartier meal without much extra effort.

Broccoli, done in a similar fashion to this pasta dish, also makes a great side dish on its own. You can find my recipe for Roasted Lemon and Parmesan Broccoli here. And if you're looking for more simple Italian-inspired pasta ideas, my Sausage and Mushroom Penne is another weeknight favourite, or check out the Oven-Baked Arrabbiata Sauce for something with a bit more kick.

If you give this pasta con broccoli a try, I'd love to hear how it turns out. Drop a rating on the recipe card below and leave a comment -- your feedback helps other readers find recipes they'll enjoy too.

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