15 Minute Cherry Tomato & Basil Pasta l My Favourite Summer Dish

This cherry tomato and basil pasta tastes like summer in a bowl! With just a handful of fresh ingredients, it delivers bright and summery flavors thanks to beautifully ripe cherry tomatoes, plenty of good olive oil, and fresh basil. As the tomatoes burst in the pan, they create the most delicious sauce that is jammy, rich and made in under 15 minutes!

RECIPE: https://daenskitchen.com/cherry-tomato-and-basil-pasta/

COOKBOOK: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Garlic-Olive-Oil-+-Everything-Mediterranean/Daen-Lia/9781668074961

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CHAPTERS:
0:00 – Intro
0:28 – Prep
1:15 – Sauce
3:15 – Pasta
4:38 – Finish

#tomatopasta

Today, we are making one of my absolute favourite 
pasta dishes to make and that is a summery cherry tomato and basil pasta. It is just summer in 
a bowl. It is made with all those beautiful summery ingredients like cherry tomatoes, fresh 
basil, salt and pepper and olive oil and garlic of course. This one comes together in absolutely 
no time! You can boil your pasta quicker than the sauce comes together. So let s get into it. 
Xoxo garlic girl.
First up, we need to prep our ingredients. Starting with the garlic of 
course.
Remove 4 garlic cloves from the bulb, smash them with the back of a knife to loosen 
the skin from the clove and then peel off the skin. We are leaving our garlic cloves whole today 
but you could mince or finely slice them if you want a stronger garlic flavour throughout.
And 
lastly for our prep work, which is very minimal, we need to grab a whole bunch of basil. Pick off 
the outer, larger leaves as they will be sweetest. We then want to finely slice our basil and I have 
a little trick for how to do this. Place the basil leaves on top of one another, roll them up tightly 
as though you were rolling a cigar and then slice. You will be left with thin strands of basil.
 
Add three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to a large fry pan that is sitting at a medium 
low heat. This may sound and look like a lot of olive oil but it plays such an important role 
in this sauce. It helps the cherry tomatoes cook down gently and provides so much flavour. Try and 
source a really high quality extra virgin olive oil when making this dish as I promise you, it 
makes all the difference.
Once the olive oil has been brought to the heat, add the garlic cloves 
and cook until slightly golden. This will give the olive oil a mild garlic flavour. A lot of people 
like to remove the garlic from the sauce once it has flavoured the olive oil but being the garlic 
lover that I am, I will not be discarding of my garlic. Once the garlic is golden and you have 
given it a lovely little olive oil bubble bath, turn the heat to medium and add the tomatoes.
 
I m using 700g or 24 oz of cherry tomatoes that have been sitting on my kitchen benchtop for 
the last few days. I like to use ripe tomatoes as they will be sweeter and juicer then freshly 
picked tomatoes. Now you could cut these in half but this is necessary. It will slightly cut down 
the cooking time but as the tomatoes cook in the olive oil they will naturally blister and burst 
open.
Keep stirring the tomatoes and garlic until you see the tomato skin starting to look 
like this. You will also notice liquid beginning to pool at the bottom of the pan and this is what 
we want to see! The juices from the tomatoes are starting to escape and release into the pan. 
Season very well with salt and pepper. The salt is going to flavour the sauce and also help with 
the tomatoes releasing more liquid.
Now remember how I mentioned there are a few different ways you 
can prep your garlic for this dish? This is how I like to do it. Remove the garlic cloves from the 
sauce, they should be nice and jammy by this time, place them onto a chopping board and mash them 
into a paste. The garlic flavour will have softened over this time and it will be mild and 
sweet. Scoop up the paste and set to the side for now.
While our sauce continues to cook, bring a 
large pot of water to the boil. Season the water very generously with salt as this will penetrate 
into the pasta and give it a lovely flavour. The pasta water is also a key ingredient in this 
recipe as it bring the sauce together. I am using fine spaghetti today as it s my kids favourites 
and this is one of their favourite dishes to eat. Cook the pasta very el dente. At least 2 -3 
minutes less than is suggested on the packet as it we want it very el dente so it doesn t 
go limp or mushy when we stir it through the sauce.
Once the pasta is cooked. Set to the pot 
to the side and go back to your sauce. I just had this sitting on a low heat on my back burner. Give 
the sauce a little stir to loosen it and then add the pasta to the pan.
The amount of tomatoes 
we used will take around ? of a packet of pasta which is roughly 400g or 14oz. Stir the pasta 
through with half a cup of pasta water. We want the spaghetti to be nicely coated in the sauce and 
the sauce to be silky and glossy. Continue to stir and add more pasta water if needed until you reach 
your desired consistency. The pasta water will emulsify and thicken so don t stress if it looks 
a little loose or watery in the early stages. Just look at how smooth and glossy that sauce 
is.
Add the garlic paste and the fresh basil to the sauce. Stir it through. Taste for seasoning 
and add more salt if needed.
Plate up the pasta and serve with a generous sprinkling of pecorino 
romano, or you could leave out the cheese if you want to keep this vegan, a little extra fresh 
basil leaves and a drizzle of olive oil.
This is such a beautiful dish that comes together in under 
15 minutes. It s such a favourite in our house, especially with my kids, one who which loves 
to pick out all the basil. We love to serve it on it s own or with a side of crispy crumbed 
chicken or some freshly baked focaccia.
Thanks for watching this video. If you liked it please 
hit that like and subscribe button. It means so much to me. And if you made this recipe, 
please let me know in the comments. I do read every single one of them and get back to all of 
them if I can. I will catch you all next week!