Recipe: 15-Minute Sage Brown Butter Pasta
This Sage Brown Butter Pasta is a very simple recipe for when you need to put dinner or lunch together quickly. The sauce comes together in the same amount of time it takes to boil the pasta, so the entire recipe takes less than fifteen minutes!
I love making this for lunch on the days when I work from home; it feels so fancy but it is simple. And, because I grow herbs during the summer, I have fresh sage on hand for whenever I need it which makes this an inexpensive meal!
15-Minute Sage Brown Butter Pasta
Serves: 2
Time: 15 minutes + the time to bring water to a boil
Ingredients:
1/2 lb pasta of your choice
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp grated Parmesan, plus more for garnish
11-12 fresh sage leaves kept whole, or about 3 tbsp chopped
1/2 tsp salt, plus more to taste
Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
Pasta water
Directions:
1. Bring a pot of water to a boil, salt the water with kosher or sea salt, and drop the pasta to cook according to package directions.
2. As soon as you drop the pasta, heat a medium skillet over medium-high heat and add the butter.
3. Cook, stirring and swirling the pan frequently, until the milk solids start to separate (it will look like frothy white stuff floating in the butter). This should take around 5 minutes.
4. Add the sage, and continue to brown the butter while swirling the pan and stirring. Once the butter is a caramel brown and is fragrant, immediately remove the pan from the heat. The entire process of browning the butter, including step 3, will take around 8-11 minutes. Set the pan aside until the pasta is done.
5. Before draining the pasta water, reserve around 1/3 of a cup of the pasta water.
6. Return the brown butter to the heat. Add the cooked pasta, 1/2 tsp salt, a small amount of freshly cracked black pepper (maybe 1/4 tsp), Parmesan, and a splash/1 tbsp. of the pasta water and stir vigorously. While you are tossing the pasta around, the sauce should thicken slightly and coat the pasta. Once this has occurred, remove the pan from heat. If the sauce seems too thick, you can always add a second splash of the pasta water.
7. Serve immediately, topping with more Parmesan and freshly cracked black pepper.
