Roasted Tomato & Goat Cheese Pasta
Pink, creamy pasta with collapsed cherry tomatoes and soft garlic looks like the kind of thing that needs a sauce recipe and a whisk. The sauce makes itself in the oven at 6:30 while you do the dishes; the goat cheese melts into it at 8:06 with a splash of pasta water. The only thing you cook with your hands is a pot of water.
- Cost for two
- $20
- Active time
- 15 min
- Done ahead
- 69%
- 1 hr 50 min before 7:30
- Hands off at
- 7:20
- T-10
Allergens: Milk (goat cheese) · Wheat (rigatoni)·Serves: 2 (with leftovers)·Oven: 425°F, then 300°F to rewarm
Gear: One baking dish (9×13 or similar — the sauce collects in it), one big pot with a lid, a colander, a mug, foil, a fork, a phone timer. No thermometer.
Start at 5:30. Hands off from 7:20. Stove mode follows the clock while you cook.
The 7:30 Timeline
Read it bottom-up if you like; cook it top-down.
Done before she arrives
Aisle order
Shopping list
Produce
Cherry or grape tomatoes
2 pints
Garlic
you use 6 cloves
1 head
Fresh basil
1 clamshell
Dairy & Cheese
Plain goat cheese
4 oz, specialty-cheese case
1 log
Pantry & Canned
Rigatoni
16 oz — you use 10 oz, about two-thirds of the box; not spaghetti, which turns to string when it goes over
1 box
Red pepper flakes
1 jar
Pantry (you probably have these)
Salt, pepper, olive oil
At the stove
Method
- 1
Put both pints of tomatoes into the baking dish, whole. Do not cut them.
- 2
Smash 6 garlic cloves flat with the side of a knife, pull off the skins, and drop them in among the tomatoes.
- 3
Turn the oven to 425°F with the rack in the middle.
- 4
Pour 3 tablespoons olive oil over the dish, then 1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes. Hold the dish with both hands and shake it side to side until every tomato is shiny.
- 5
Slide the dish onto the middle rack and set a 30-minute timer.
- 6
At the timer, the tomatoes should be split open and slumped with red juice pooling in the corners of the dish, and the garlic soft and golden. Not there yet? 8 more minutes. Turn the oven off, lay foil over the dish, and leave it on the stovetop.
- 7
Fill the big pot two-thirds with water, add 1 tablespoon of salt, put the lid on, and set it on a burner with the burner off. Put the pasta box, a mug, and the colander next to it so nothing needs finding later.
- 8
Pull 15 basil leaves off the stems onto a saucer and leave them out.
- 9
At 7:40, turn the oven to 300°F and slide the foil-covered tomato dish back in. It rewarms while the water heats; it does not need you.
- 10
At 7:45, turn the burner under the pot to high with the lid on.
- 11
When the lid rattles and the water is rolling — around 7:55 — take the lid off, pour in 10 oz of rigatoni (two-thirds of the box), and stir once with the fork so nothing sticks. Set the timer for the box time minus one minute.
- 12
At the timer, scoop a full mug of the cloudy pasta water out of the pot before you do anything else. That water is the sauce's other half.
- 13
Pour the pot into the colander in the sink. Shake it twice.
- 14
Pull the tomato dish with oven mitts. Tip the drained pasta into it.
- 15
Unwrap the goat cheese and crumble the whole log over the pasta with your fingers.
- 16
Pour in half the mug of pasta water. Stir with the fork for 30 seconds, mashing some tomatoes as you go, until the cheese disappears and everything is coated in a pale pink sauce. Too thick? More water from the mug, a splash at a time.
- 17
Tear the basil leaves over the dish with your hands. Plate.
Is it done?
The check that needs no experience
No temperature needed. Pasta: at the timer, fish one piece out with the fork and bite it. It should be soft with the smallest firmness in the very center. Soft all the way through is also fine. Tomatoes: done when most have split their skins and are slumped with juice pooling in the dish. Nothing here can be under-cooked in a way that is unsafe — under-done pasta is chewy, not dangerous.
The #1 way to screw it up
You drained the pasta, forgot the mug, and now the goat cheese is a dry, clumpy paste stuck to the rigatoni instead of a sauce.
Recovery
Run the tap as hot as it goes, put ⅓ cup of hot water and 2 tablespoons of olive oil into the dish, and stir for a full minute. The cheese loosens and coats. It will not be quite as silky as the pasta-water version, and it will still be pink, creamy, and a good dinner. If you have a kettle, use kettle water instead of tap.
- Pasta went 5 minutes over while you were talking
- drain it immediately, run cold tap water over it for 10 seconds to stop it cooking, then into the hot tomato dish. Rigatoni at +5 is soft; it is not mush. Add the cheese and do not mention it.
- Tomatoes not burst at 7:00
- 8 more minutes at 425°F. You have an hour of margin here; none of it is in front of her.
The reveal
Plating
Use two wide, shallow bowls and lift the pasta in with a big spoon so the tomatoes and garlic come with it rather than staying at the bottom of the dish. Spoon any pink sauce left in the dish over the top of each bowl. Finish with torn basil, a crack of black pepper, a small pinch of pepper flakes, and a thin ring of olive oil around the edge of the pasta where it meets the bowl.
Vegetarian swap
Vegetarian as written. ASSUMPTION: most supermarket goat cheese logs use microbial rennet; check the label if it matters to her. To add meat: tear 4 slices of prosciutto over the bowls at the end, uncooked, or crumble a cooked Italian sausage from sausage-roasted-grapes-polenta into the dish at 8:06.
What to pour
- Wine
- a Sauvignon Blanc — Kim Crawford, about $14; goat cheese and Sauvignon Blanc is the classic pairing and it is not close.
- Beer
- Pilsner Urquell.
- No alcohol
- Spindrift lemon, or sparkling water with a torn basil leaf and a squeeze of lemon.
Take this to the supermarket.
The First Bulletproof Dinner as a PDF, with the timelines. Free.