Pasta with Bacon and Spinach Cream Sauce
I boiled some fettuccine, fried some bacon then tossed the pasta and bacon with a heaping tablespoonful of spinach cream sauce (that came be made ahead and stored). What a stupendous pasta dish it turned out to be. And it took so little time to get everything together too.
Ingredients
For the spinach sauce
- 1 bag spinach
- 3 tablespoons roughly chopped onion
- 1 large bell pepper roasted, skinned, seeded and roughly chopped
- ¾ cup sour cream less for a chunkier dip
- ¼ cup cream cheese at room temperature
- salt
- pepper
- cayenne powder
- juice from half a lemon or lime
- sugar
- pepper
To complete the dish
- 50 grams fettuccine or your preferred pasta shape
- 2 rashers belly bacon roughly chopped
Instructions
Make the sauce
- Unless using baby spinach which has very tender stalks, I recommend picking the spinach leaves and discarding the stalks. Rinse the spinach leaves after picking.
- Boil about four cups of water.
- Dump the spinach in the boiling water, pressing the leaves down. Allow to cook for no more than a minute after the water boils again.
- Drain the spinach leaves. Douse under the tap to cool. Squeeze to remove the excess water.
- If you have less than a cup of spinach leaves at this point, you will need to use less sour cream and cream cheese. The measurements recommended above are good for a cup of boiled and squeezed spinach leaves.
- Put the spinach, roasted bell pepper, onion, sour cream and cream cheese in the food processor or blender. Process until smooth but with still discernible bits of leaves.
- Transfer the mixture to a bowl. Stir in the lemon or lime juice.
- Add salt, pepper, cayenne powder and sugar — the amounts depending on the balance that you prefer. Mix. Adjust the seasonings some more, if needed.
- Chill until needed.
Complete the dish
- Cook the pasta in boiling salted water.
- While the pasta cooks, fry the bacon in a non-stick frying pan.
- When the bacon is nicely browned, turn off the heat. Add two tablespoons spinach cream sauce to the still hot pan. Stir.
- Drain the pasta and dump into the bacon-spinach sauce mixture. Toss. Serve.
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