This recipe for pasta with brown butter and wilted greens sounds fancy, but cookbook author and Catskills resident Alexis de Boschnek proves it’s an easy weeknight meal.
Cookbook author and Catskills resident Alexis de Boschnek has plenty to show for her career as a recipe developer: two books, features in foodie pubs Bon Appétit and Epicurious, videos from her position as a senior test kitchen manager at Tasty, and more. With her latest release, Nights and Weekends, de Boschnek provides readers with dozens of dinner ideas that come together quickly without sacrificing taste—a skill she’s mastered as the caretaker of Uplands, a 100-acre regenerative farm in Delhi. Read on for an easy weeknight meal.
Pasta With Brown Butter, Wilted Greens, and Walnuts
Course: PastaCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy6
servings5
minutes20
minutesIf, like me, you often buy a box of mixed greens with big intentions, only to have them slowly wither in the back of the refrigerator, this recipe is for you. It’s a pantry pasta that gets the bulk of flavor from cooking the butter until nutty and golden brown, along with a generous amount of garlic. While a 10-ounce box may seem like a lot, the greens wilt down in minutes once they touch the heat of the pan.
Ingredients
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Kosher salt
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6 Tbsp (¾ stick) unsalted butter
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6 Tbsp (¾ stick) unsalted butter
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¾ cup walnuts or other nut of choice, coarsely chopped
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4 garlic cloves, minced
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1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
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¼ tsp red pepper flakes
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1 (10-ounce) container mixed greens, cleaned
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1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
Directions
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until al dente according to the package instructions. Drain the pasta in a colander.
- Melt the butter in a large pan over medium-high heat, swirling the pan occasionally. When the butter has melted and become foamy, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until the butter is lightly golden brown and smells nutty, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the walnuts, garlic, 1 teaspoon salt, the black pepper, and the red pepper flakes and cook, stirring, until aromatic, about 30 seconds.
- Increase the heat to medium-high, add the mixed greens to the pan, and cook until greens are wilted, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat. Add the pasta and Parmigiano and stir to combine. Serve immediately.
Notes
- I call for a box of mixed greens here, but any assortment of greens will work to sauté, like spinach, kale, mustard greens, radicchio, or arugula. The point is to use something you have on hand. You can use any type of nut you’d like in place of walnuts, such as pecans, hazelnuts, pine nuts, or pistachios. While you can also leave them out, I like the crunch they add. Leftover pasta can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
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