This cozy tomato and garlic confit pasta is one of my favorite ways to celebrate sweet summer tomatoes. It requires very little prep time – you add all the ingredients into a baking dish and let the oven do all the work. Slow roasting the cherry tomatoes along with the garlic and aromatics produces a delicious robust sauce. It’s the perfect pasta for those busy weeknights!
what is confit?
Confit in French means “to preserve” and refers to the process of slow cooking and storing food in fat. For this pasta, cherry tomatoes are slow roasted along with garlic, onions and herbs in olive oil for about an hour. Then you reserve most of the tomato and garlic infused oil and blend the rest of the ingredients until you get a velvety tomato sauce. You can use the tomato and garlic confit oil on pastas, roasted vegetables and toast.
what type of pasta can I use?
You can use any short pastas like penne or rigatoni which cling well to the sauce because of their ridges and hollow shape. I used Calamari Rigati (below) which is essentially a shorter rigatoni and they look like fried calamari.
how can i make this vegan?
Recently, I’ve been experimenting a lot with vegan recipes because my 7-month old has a dairy intolerance so I had to cut dairy out of my diet while nursing. I love cheese so it’s been really challenging but it’s also been an interesting experience to learn more about vegan cuisine. Although I have yet to find a worthy non-dairy substitute for all my favorite cheeses like parmesan and mozzarella, I discovered various ways to make comforting pasta sauces, like this one, without the use of dairy.
For this pasta, I substituted heavy cream with oat milk and my husband could not tell the difference! Also, when you vigorously stir the starchy pasta water into the sauce, you end up with a velvety consistency. If you want to try the vegan version of this recipe, I promise you won’t feel like you’re missing out.
Easy Tomato & Garlic Confit Pasta
Equipment
- 1 large baking dish or oven-proof pan
Ingredients
- 1 lb cherry tomatoes
- 18 garlic cloves bitter shoots removed
- 1 medium onion peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 cup olive oil
- 2 sprigs of fresh thyme
- 1 tsp red chili flakes optional
- 1/2 cup heavy cream or non-dairy milk
- 1/3 cup pasta water
- 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 lb pasta penne, rigatoni or calamari rigati
- kosher salt & cracked black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300°F.
- In a large oven-safe pan, add the tomatoes, garlic, onions, fresh oregano, red chili flakes and olive oil. Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes until the tomatoes and garlic become tender.
- Once the tomato and garlic confit is baked, remove and discard the thyme from the baking dish. Place a mesh strainer over a heat-safe bowl. Then strain the confit. Transfer the tomato and garlic confit to a blender and add 1/4 cup of the confit oil to the blender. Blitz the confit until you get a smooth consistency. Transfer the rest of the confit oil to a glass jar and let it cool before placing the lid. The tomato and garlic confit oil can be used for toast and other pastas.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil and generously season the water with kosher salt. Follow the pasta package instructions for al dente pasta and drain the pasta 2 minutes before the suggested al dente cooking time. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water and set aside.
- While the pasta is cooking, add the pasta sauce and cream to a large skillet. Then set the pan over medium heat and cook the sauce for about 2-3 minutes.
- Then add the pasta to the pan and reduce the heat to low. Add 1/2 cup of the pasta water and vigorously mix the pasta with the sauce. Add additional pasta water if the sauce needs to be thinned out more. Then turn off the heat and add the parmesan cheese and stir everything together.
- Plate the pasta and garnish with additional cheese and red chili flakes (optional). Serve immediately because good pasta waits for no one! Enjoy!
