Sun-Dried Tomato Spaghetti with Bacon

30-minute sun-dried tomato spaghetti with bacon is a quick and easy pasta dinner for busy nights. You only need a handful of ingredients and, once prepped, the dish is ready in the time it takes to boil the pasta.

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Some of my favorite dinner recipes are hardly recipes at all. Instead, they start out as a collection of whatever odds and ends I have on hand that I toss together when the hangry feeling has taken hold and I need dinner rightnow. This usually happens at 6 pm on a Monday night.

So, there’s no planning, no drafting of a recipe card with the ingredients and amounts listed in an orderly manner that is then properly filed and scheduled for testing later in the week as is the case with a lot of other recipes I do.

Instead, efficiency is the goal. These experiments don’t always turn out, but sometimes they do as is this case with this pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, bacon, and Parmesan cheese.

This sun-dried tomato spaghetti is like my pasta with olive oil and garlic and Mediterranean pasta recipes – they started out as a scribble on a post-it note, too, but then somehow grew-up and become proper recipes worthy of typing up and sharing here with you.

So, I made it once and then made it a few more times tweaking the amounts until it only made sense to write it down and, at that point, I was in love with it, so here we are.

Here’s what to know about this easy spaghetti dinner:

• You only need a handful of ingredients – seven total.
• It’s a quick 30-minute pasta recipe although, if you’re a fast prepper, it takes even less time.
• It has bacon (!)

Some might call it a “sauceless” pasta because the sauce is very light. Once you cook the bacon with oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes and add some fresh lemon juice just at the end, you get a very light sauce that coats the spaghetti when you toss it all together.

Ingredients

• I like to use thick spaghetti for this recipe, but any long pasta will work well.
• I use julienne-cut sun-dried tomatoes that are packed in olive oil with herbs (I use California Sun-Dry brand, p.s. not paid to say that). You don’t have to cut them (already done for you!) and you don’t have to flavor the oil (already done!). I use both the tomatoes and the oil in this dish.
• Sliced bacon (!)
• Chopped garlic
• Chopped parsley
• Fresh lemon juice
• Grated Parmesan cheese

How to Make It

• Get your pasta water going and, while you wait for it to boil, slice the bacon into small pieces, chop the garlic and parsley, and grate the cheese unless you want less work (yassss!) in which case use pre-grated cheese.
• Once your water is boiling add the pasta and, while it cooks, make the rest of the dish.
• In a large skillet, cook the bacon until it’s rendered its fat and starts to crisp. This will take about eight minutes or so.
• Add the garlic and the tomatoes with the oil. I use about half a jar of the tomatoes and oil, but a little more or less won’t ruin anything.
• Stir it all around for a minute or so. You’re basically just warming up the tomatoes and oil at this point, which doesn’t take long.
• Reserve 1/4 cup of the starchy pasta water before you drain the pasta. Add the water, parsley, and cooked pasta to the pan. Add the lemon juice and, using tongs, toss the spaghetti in the “sauce”.
• Garnish each serving with more parmesan cheese – not a whole lot, just a tablespoon each will do.

30 minutes + simple ingredients = dinnertime happiness.

Happy (easy) cooking,

More Quick Pasta Recipes

Here are some more quick and easy pasta recipes otherwise known as what to make when you’re hangry.

• 15-Minute Tomato Pasta | Boil some pasta and toss it a no-cook tomato sauce that’s full of fresh flavors. So, so easy.
• Lemon-Leek Pasta with Chicken | Butter, leeks, chicken and pasta – so many great flavors in this one simple dinner.
• Italian Sausage and Peppers Pasta | I love the combination of fresh bell peppers with hearty sausage and a simple tomato sauce pulls it all together.

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