This BLT Pasta combines crispy bacon, juicy tomatoes and spinach in a light, creamy sauce, all finished with buttery sourdough crumbs. Perfectly delicious!
What’s great about this recipe is it only uses a handful of simple ingredients, but they all come together to create such a tasty meal that you’ll make time and time again. Follow me…
Ingredients Notes
The full recipe is down in the recipe card, but I just want to touch on a couple of ingredients before we tuck in:
- Spinach to the rescue – Not technically a lettuce, but it’s sturdy and holds well in the pasta without going soggy/mushy. As such, and rather ironically, I don’t recommend using actual lettuce!
- Choose your bacon wisely – You’ll want to use streaky bacon because it’s the fattiest cut; the excess fat is what adds flavours and helps create the sauce. I use unsmoked, but you could use smoked if you’d prefer.
- Any old bread will do – We’re going to be scattering over buttery breadcrumbs at the end (more on this in a sec). For this, I prefer day-old sourdough, but any kind of crusty bread will work just fine.
Buttery Breadcrumbs
A BLT combo is of course most classically seen in a sandwich. As such, I wanted to incorporate every part of it in this pasta, including the bread.
I figured if there’s going to be breadcrumbs scattered over my pasta, they better be a) crispy and b) tasty. As such, we’re going to be toasting the breadcrumbs in butter before we use them. This gives them a rich flavour which adds more purpose to the breadcrumbs than simply just adding texture.
Process shots: add butter to pan (photo 1), melt (photo 2), add Sourdough crumbs (photo 3), toast (photo 4).
BLT Pasta
Once you’ve made the buttery breadcrumbs, you can go in with the bacon.
Low ‘n’ Slow
You’ll want to fry the bacon over medium heat in order to draw out the fat. This is a crucial step, as it creates the flavour base of the sauce. The excess bacon fat will also emulsify with the excess pasta water to create a light, glossy sauce. If you fry the bacon over a heat that’s too high, you won’t be able to render down the fat.
Starchy Pasta Water
Don’t drain away the pasta water once the pasta is cooked! Adding in some of the pasta water will help prevent the dish from drying out. It’ll also help create a very light creamy sauce.
Process shots: fry bacon then remove (photo 1), fry garlic and tomatoes (photo 2), add spinach (photo 3), add pasta and starchy water (photo 4), add Crรจme Fraรฎche, parmesan and bacon (photo 5), toss (photo 6).
Serving BLT Pasta
You’ll want to serve up right away so the sauce doesn’t dry out. You can then scatter over the crumbs, working to taste, then tuck in and enjoy!
This pasta is best made fresh and doesn’t reheat overly well, so I don’t recommend making it in advance (thankfully it’s so quick and easy to make).
Alrighty, let’s tuck into the full recipe for this BLT pasta shall we?!
How to make BLT Pasta (Full Recipe & Video)
BLT Pasta
Equipment
- Sharp Knife & Chopping Board
- Food Processor (for breadcrumbs – optional)
- Very Large Deep Pan & Wooden Spoon
- Large Pot & Tongs (for cooking pasta)
Ingredients
- 1.5oz / 45g Day-Old Sourdough or Crusty Bread, blitzed into a coarse crumb (see notes)
- 2 tbsp Butter
- 7oz / 200g Streaky Bacon, diced (see notes)
- 12oz / 350g Spaghetti
- 12oz / 350g Cherry Tomatoes, halved
- 2 large cloves of Garlic, finely diced
- 5oz / 150g Baby Spinach
- 1/2 cup / 120g Crรจme Fraรฎche
- 1/2 cup / 40g freshly grated Parmesan
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a very large deep pan over medium heat, then add the breadcrumbs. Toast until golden and crisp, then remove and cool to one side. Wipe out the pan if needed.
- Add the bacon to the pan and fry until crisp with the fat rendered down. Remove the bacon and place to one side, leaving the bacon fat in the pan.
- Meanwhile, add the pasta to salted boiling water and cook until al dente. Don't drain.
- Add the tomatoes and garlic to the leftover bacon fat. Fry until the tomatoes begin to soften/wilt and release their juices. Turn the heat to low and add the spinach, then use tongs to transfer the cooked pasta straight from the pot into the pan.
- Add in a splash of the leftover pasta water, then toss until the spinach begins to wilt and distributes through the pasta. The excess starchy water will start to form a very light glossy sauce with the bacon fat and tomato juices. Toss in the crรจme fraรฎche until it blends through the pasta, then toss in the parmesan and bacon. If the sauce dries out at any point, just toss in some more pasta water, a splash at a time, to thin out the sauce as needed. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve individual portions with a sprinkling of breadcrumbs!
Video
Notes
Your Private Notes:
Nutrition
Looking for more?
You’ll find plenty more delicious comfort food like this in my Debut Cookbook ‘Comfy’
For more similar recipes check out these beauties:
Bacon Pasta Recipes
Thank you for sharing this recipe!! It was absolutely delicious even for my fussy husband who doesnโt like โhot tomatoesโ
So pleased to hear, Audrey! C.
Recipe looks delicious canโt wait to try howeverโฆI donโt have crรจme fresh. What substitute would work better. Sour cream or plain Greek yogurt not sure if youโve subbed either one before.Thank you.
Hi Susan! I think the best sub would be sour cream + a splash of heavy/double cream. If you don’t have cream, then just use sour cream (preferably full fat). I wouldn’t use yoghurt as it risks curdling and throwing the flavour off. C.
Delicious but easy meal. Made this for two and was great.
Added more garlic because we love it.
So Good.
Great to hear it went down well! Thanks so much for popping back for a review ๐ C.
Tried this when you sent it out on your emails. Was surprised how tasty it was given the simple selection of ingredients. Will make again.
Thanks so much for the review, Tanya ๐ C.