Capers and olives are two of my favorite things. So, naturally I’m a fan of pasta puttanesca. Last week I was looking for a super fast recipe I could pull together for Ian and I to eat for dinner. I found this recipe on Post Punk Kitchen for a gluten free version of pasta puttanesca that uses quinoa in place of pasta. Other than canned tomatoes, there are no veggies in the recipe, which seemed boring and not super healthy. I added broccoli and spinach. The recipe calls for A LOT of capers (1/2 cup!). We only had 1/4 cup so that’s what I added. Even with the added veggies, the dish was way too salty. There’s no added salt in the sauce, but with the olives and capers, plus the salt in the canned tomatoes, it was too much. I ended up adding chickpeas to tone down the salt, which helped a lot. Ian said the dish was better once he added unsalted fried egg. We also ran out of sauce long before we ran out of quinoa.
This a super fast weeknight, clean out the fridge kind of dish. It’s so fat and easy, that I’d try making my own version of it again, with a lot of modifications. I increase the sauce to account for the quinoa/sauce ratio, add veggies and fresh herbs, and omit the wine (I’m not convinced it did anything). Here’s the recipe I’ll try next time. I’ll report back once I do. If you try it before me, let me know how it goes!
1 cup dry quinoa (3 cups cooked)
For the sauce:
1 tablespoon olive oil (1 1/2 if making low fodmap)
3 cloves garlic, chopped (or sliced if you’re making low fodmap)
2 sprigs fresh thyme (use 1 tsp dry if you don’t have fresh)
2 sprigs fresh rosemary (use 1 tsp dry if you don’t have fresh)
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
generous pinch each tarragon and marjoram (optional)
1/3 cup kalamata olives, roughly chopped (sliced in half is great)
1/4 cup capers
38 (ish) ounces canned UNSALTED crushed tomatoes
2 cups broccoli florets (or other veggies like zucchini, bell pepper, or mushroom)
3 cups spinach (or other leafy green such as kale)
fresh black pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
- Combine quinoa and two cups water in a saucepan, bring to a boil.
- Turn quinoa down to low and simmer for 15 minutes.
- Preheat a deep pan or mid sized pot over medium heat. Add the oil and garlic and stir for about a minute, being careful not to burn the garlic (if making low fodmap, cook garlic for 5-10 minutes on low and remove garlic)
- Add olives, capers, chickpeas, herbs, spices, and tomatoes. Cook for about 9 minutes.
- Add broccoli. Cook for 2 minutes.
- Add spinach. Cook for 4 minutes.
- Turn off heat. Add pepper and parsley.
- Serve sauce over quinoa.
