Roasted Vegetable Pasta

This roasted vegetable pasta recipe has been on heavy rotation for me this summer. Why might you ask? Well, for many different reasons! It comes together fairly quickly. It’s wholesome and filling while also offering a good amount of plant-based protein. But most importantly, it is absolutely delicious with each bite offering a substantial amount of flavor and texture while celebrating the abundance of summer produce.

INGREDIENTS OVERVIEW

For this roasted vegetable pasta, you will need carrots, eggplant, zuchinni, lentils, capers, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms (you can use cremini but I really prefer and recommend using large shiitakes for this) and fresh basil. If you’d like to add the optional topping, you will need raw walnuts and some lemon zest. Other than that you’ll just need some pantry staples (Italian herbs, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, rice vinegar, etc…), a large pot to cook and mix the pasta, and a large baking sheet to roast the vegetables.

CUTTING THE VEGETABLES FOR THE BEST RESULTS

For this roasted vegetable pasta, how you cut the vegetables is key. The reason for this is because we will be roasting them all together at a fairly high temperature (425°F) but we want the vegetables to each cook differently to maximize flavor and to encourage their best texture. This means cutting the eggplant into small pieces so that they caramelize and become incredibly tender and succulent. We went each piece to melt into the pasta.

The same goes for the carrots! We want those to become tender and sweet so cutting them into small slices is key. Now for the mushrooms and zucchini, I quite like keeping them as large chunks. This way they maintain a good amount of their texture while also becoming succulent which makes the final dish feel satisfying and substantial. As for the tomatoes, you can use whatever variety you’d like but I think small cherry tomatoes work beautifully as they burst and release all of their flavor into the other vegetables while roasting.

HOW TO PREP THE LENTILS

And last but certainly not least, once all of the vegetables are tossed with their seasonings and spices and laid out onto the baking tray, you will add a hefty sprinkling of cooked lentils over top. Before you do that, you will toss them with a small amount of olive oil and then add them as the final layer. This will give them the best opportunity to become nice and crispy. Some of them will be softer than the rest but most of them will become nice and crunchy. This variety of texture makes the final pasta dish interesting and fun to eat, while the lentils also offer a fantastic amount of added protein.

For the lentils, I suggest using green lentils as they are quite easy to find and they also hold their shape nicely once cooked. To cook them, I like to soak them first for about an hour and then cook them in a small pot covered with a few inches of water. After you bring them to a boil, you can reduce the heat to low and they shouldn’t need much longer until they are tender. They cook quite fast, especially if you soak them. Of course, I like to add salt and pepper to the water (in addition to 2 to 3 bay leaves and a small strip of kombu… but these are optional). You could also certainly use canned lentils or precooked and packaged lentils that are sold in the salad section of many different grocery stores. Lastly, you could also use cooked chickpeas if you don’t have lentils!

TIPS FOR COOKING THE PASTA

Now I am sure all of you know how to cook a pot of pasta! But I wanted to offer my little tip for making it taste as delicious as possible. First off, we will be using penne for this but you could use your favorite bite-sized shape… something like cavatappi would also work nicely. (Also keep in mind, this step can happen while the vegetables are roasting to save time.)

Once you cook the pasta in salted water, you want to get it to the point where it is al dente, meaning it should have some bite. Then you will drain the pasta and add it back to the pot, leaving about ¼ cup of the pasta water in the pot (so basically… just don’t drain it too well). Then you’ll add some good marinara and capers and cook the pasta on low heat until it is perfectly tender and has absorbed any remaining liquid. Once the sauce has become thick and sticks to the pasta, you can combine it with the roasted vegetables.

COMBINING THE ROASTED VEGETABLE PASTA

Once the pasta and vegetables are both cooked, you simply combine them all together in the pot and give it a toss! At this point, you can season more to your liking with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper flakes. You might notice that it will not be very saucy at this point and that is intentional. I personally don’t love it when my pasta is too saucy and I would much rather spoon over small dollops of marinara to each serving. I think this makes it taste more delicious and you get nice beautiful bites of marinara as you are eating.