Garlic Ricotta Arugula Pasta recipe

This Garlic Ricotta Arugula Pasta recipe is a 20 minute pasta meal that you need to make! So delicious, easy and fast. It’s cheesy, full of flavor and filling too. Save the recipe so you can always come back to it!

Happy Sunday, friends! A few years ago I started a series on my recipe Instagram (@sugarmaplekitchen) called Pasta Sundays. Then last year when I made a distinct effort to really try to lose weight, I cut out a lot of carbs. Now that I’ve met my goal, I feel like I’m ready to let Pasta Sundays creep back in. For now at least when the days are short, I have plenty of time to work out and my belly craves comfort food during the cold weather. Catch up with me in April and I might not feel the same when I’m knee deep in planting season.

But today we are having a Pasta Sunday here on the farm and I decided to kick it off with something nice and simple. As I mentioned, the days are short right now. Being so far North it becomes really difficult to shoot photography or video after 4 p.m. so quick is the key whenever I make anything for the blog. And you really can’t get any faster than this 20 minute Garlic, Ricotta Arugula Pasta recipe. It would be hard to create something else as delicious as this in that amount of time too.

Delicious, you say?

How do I know it’s so good? When I was done creating this Garlic Ricotta Arugula Pasta recipe I walked over to Kevin with a fork full of noodles to have him taste it. He was watching football and nodded his approval. Then he got up off the couch, took the plate from the kitchen (the one you see in the photos) and wouldn’t let me have another bite while he scarfed it down. Then he started eating more bites from the bowl that I had covered in advance of our real dinnertime.

So I feel pretty confident in telling you this is one delicious pasta recipe.

So what’s in it…

The name Garlic Ricotta Arugula Pasta kind of gives away a lot of the ingredients. But there’s more. Just a few more because like I said, I wanted this to be easy. However, there are some other flavors required to pull all of that together. In addition to the garlic, arugula and ricotta, there’s also extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, basil, parmesan cheese, a little fresh squeezed lemon and parsley. The key all of this is using fresh herbs right along with the fresh arugula. Also, a high quality extra virgin olive oil and ricotta are a must.

The pasta is boiled in salted water, which really brings out the flavor profile. I picked penne pasta for the Garlic Ricotta Arugula Pasta recipe because I wanted the delicious ricotta mix to get into the noodles. Roman calls Penne and Rigatoni noodles “Pool noodles” since they look like the pool floats and they’re a favorite of his too. I kind of default to them often for this reason. 🙂 It’s hard to say no to your kid when they show you how they see the world.

Tips for making Garlic Ricotta Arugula Pasta recipe

• You do need a food processor to make this, or a blender. I am using this food processor {HERE}. It’s a little tight for this but this is what I have and I love the way it chops.
• This will feel a little redundant but use fresh basil and parsley! Make sure the olive oil is EXTRA VIRGIN olive oil.
• I use whole milk ricotta and always recommend the same.
• For the cheese, you can save time if you want and get pre-shredded but make sure to use a higher quality brand like Sartori Shredded Parmesan. (This is not sponsored. I use this to save time.)
• Also, don’t use table salt or the salt recommendations will be a little bit of a mess. Use sea salt and fresh cracked pepper while we are at it.
• For the garlic, either press or grate it before adding it to the ricotta mix. You can also use the pre-chopped kind if you like.
• Make sure to pour the ricotta mix over the pasta when its still hot and steaming and finish it off. More information on that is in the recipe below.
• If you want to make the ricotta mix ahead of time you can. Just keep it in an air tight container in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use. It will be good for about 4 days.
• When you are ready to use it, make sure to take it out of the refrigerator about 1 hour in advance to let the olive oil come back to room temperature.
• IMPORTANT: This recipe only uses about 1/3 – 1/2 of the ricotta mix. Using an entire box of pasta I would use half of it. Save the rest of it and you can use it later in the week or you can freeze it to use a month from now.

Looking for some other pasta dishes?

If you love pasta as much as I do, try some of these other delicious pasta recipes.

• Pesto Pasta with Honey Whipped Ricotta {HERE}
• Creamy Lemon Butter Pasta {HERE}
• Pasta with White Wine Butter Sauce and Blistered Tomatoes {HERE}
• Lasagna Skillet {HERE}
• Sun Dried Tomato Bow Tie Pasta {HERE}

Happy eating, friends! I hope you enjoy this Garlic Ricotta Arugula Pasta recipe and hope that you come back again. You can find the full, printable recipe below.

Garlic Ricotta Arugula Pasta recipe

This Garlic Ricotta Arugula Pasta recipe is a 20 minute pasta meal that you need to make! So delicious, easy and fast. It's cheesy, full of flavor and filling too. Save the recipe so you can always come back to it!

5 from 5 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: dinner

Cuisine: American, Italain

Keyword: 20 minute pasta recipe, arugula pasta recipe, easy pasta recipe, garlic pasta recipe, garlic ricotta arugula pasta recipe

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Servings: 6

Author: Rachel

Equipment

• Food processor or blender

Ingredients

• 1 15 oz container of ricotta cheese, whole milk
• 1 cup high quality extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups arugula
• 1 cup basil, chopped and packed
• 1 Tbsp. garlic, grated or pureed
• 1/2 Tbsp. sea salt
• 1 tsp fresh cracked pepper
• Juice from half a lemon About 1 Tablespoon
• 1 box penne pasta Plus salt for pasta water
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
• 2/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese
• Additional sea salt and pepper, red pepper flakes to taste and additional basil if desired,

Instructions

• Bring water to a boil on the stove with about 2 tsp. of salt and then add the pasta noodles.
• In a food processor, combine the ricotta, extra virgin olive oil, garlic, arugula, basil, lemon juice, sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. Blend until smooth.
• Once the pasta is done, drain and then immediately add to a bowl. Spoon a couple of spoonfuls of the ricotta mix over the pasta. Add the parmesan cheese and parsley and mix.
• When serving, top with additional sea salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste. Add in additional fresh basil if desired and red pepper flakes to taste.