Spicy tomato rigatoni with bacon and broccoli is a speedy, bold, and hearty weeknight pasta. It can be ready in under 30 minutes from start to finish. Grab some greens on your way home, and you've likely got everything else you need to make this already.
Strips of smoky bacon simmer in a slightly spicy, slightly sweet tomato sauce. We cook thinly sliced broccoli florets in the sauce while the pasta boils. This eliminates the need for a separate vegetable side. A one-bowl dinner that the whole family will enjoy. Win-win.
🥘 Ingredients
Rigatoni – big, beefy pasta shape that adds chew and substance to the dish. These ridged BIG tubes are great for holding the sauce. The same weight of any pasta shape will work fine though.
Tomatoes – canned whole tomatoes are the only canned tomatoes you need in your pantry. Crush them by hand and avoid the processed ready-chopped ones. This gives a more natural texture to your food.
Streaky Bacon – adds salty, smoky flavour to dish, plus a little bite. We render off the fat first to flavour the whole sauce.
Adding bacon to a tomato-based sauce or soup is always a good thing. I’m thinking about you minestrone and bolognese sauce. It makes crunchy savoury toppings pretty spesh too. It’s one of the special things about my one-pan crispy spaghetti and chicken recipe.
Broccoli – adds colour, flavour and bulk to the dish. You can substitute with the same weight of any leafy green. Think broccolini, Chinese broccoli, kale, silverbeet.
Chilli Flakes –the suggested ¼ teaspoon provides a nice hum of heat to the dish. My kids enjoy this. Feel free to up it if you like more heat (or sprinkle some on the top to serve).
Sugar – just a touch to counteract the acidity of the tomatoes.
Parmesan – great to top any pasta dish, particularly ones like this that don’t contain cheese. Use instead of a sprinkle of salt to add seasoning. The dry texture when grated finely is a great contrast to the chewy rigatoni and tomato sauce. Yes, there is a point to the smallest holes of your box grater!
Black Pepper – a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper works well with the bacon here. Don’t skimp. Make sure it’s on the table when you serve so that people can add more to the top.
🔪 Instructions
Get some salted water up to the boil in a large. Put a lid on to speed up the process (but check on it every so often so that it doesn’t boil over!). We can get on with our sauce until we can start boiling our pasta.
We chop up the streaky bacon. It makes sense to use the size of the pasta as a rough guide so that the chunky ingredients match in size. I tend to cut each rasher in thin strips across the width.
The best way to cook bacon is at a slow pace with a touch of water. Cook over low heat until the water has gone and the fat is starting to render out of the bacon. Turn the heat to medium and cook the bacon, stirring often, until it is crisp and browned. Reduce the heat if it’s browning too fast (before the fat has rendered). Don’t tip out the fat! This will add wonderful flavour to our sauce. We don’t need to add any more oil.
Add crushed tomatoes and seasoning, plus a touch of sugar. Bring this to a gentle simmer.
Separate the broccoli into florets by pulling them off the main stem with your hands. Cut into thin tree-shaped slices. You can peel and strim the stem and cut this into thin rounds too.
Once the water is up to boil, tip in the pasta. Keep it on the move by stirring often until the water comes back to a boil. The pasta will tend to rest on the bottom and stick otherwise. Add all the broccoli pieces to the sauce and stir well to cover them so that they can soften a touch. By the time the pasta is cooked, the broccoli should be fork-tender. Pop a lid or a sheet of foil over the pan to hurry this along if need be.
Keep a bit of bite in the broccoli
The broccoli gets added towards the end of cooking so that it doesn’t get completely soft. A little texture is good here.
Drain the pasta when it is a couple of minutes shy of being cooked all the way. It will continue to cook when you combine it with the sauce before serving. Scoop off and keep some of the starchy water before you drain.
Tip all the sauce over the drained pasta and combine well. We want to work the sauce into all those ridges and into the centres of the tubes. Add as much pasta water as you like to get the sauce as loose as you want. Serve up generously sprinkled with parmesan cheese and ground black pepper.
What’s the point of adding pasta water to a pasta dish?
You’ll often see cooks incorporate pasta water to pasta dishes. The froth that collects on the surface of the water is full of thickening starch from the pasta. You can add it to the sauce to help thicken and enrich it; help it cling to the pasta better too. You can do this one of two ways. Either scoop out some pasta water before draining or keep the pasta quite wet when you strain it.
How much pasta water should I add to the sauce?
This will depend on a few factors. How much the sauce has reduced; how long it cooked for over how high a heat. How thick or thin do you want the sauce? How good the tinned tomatoes are – I’ve found the best ones like Mutti are richer and less watery. Reserve about 250ml (a cup) of pasta water and use what you need.
📖 Recipe
Equipment
- large deep saucepan- This should be large enough to boil the rigatoni and then combine it with the sauce.
- Shallow wide pan - To make the sauce.
Ingredients
- 200 g streaky bacon (about 8 rashers)
- 800 g canned whole tomatoes
- ¼ teaspoon chilli flakes
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- ⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 200 g broccoli (including stems)
- 320 g rigatoni pasta (or other tube-shaped pasta)
- 40 g parmesan
Instructions
- Pasta Water - bring plenty of salted water to boil in a large saucepan.
- Render Bacon – chop the bacon. Add to a cold dry pan. Add ½ cup (125ml) water and stir to combine. Spread the bacon out in a thin layer. Put the pan over low heat and cook until the water is cooked off and the bacon fat is starting to render (melt). Increase the heat to medium. Cook, stirring often, until the bacon is crisp and browned and all the bacon fat is melted. Reduce the heat if the bacon is getting too browned.200 g streaky bacon
- Crush Tomatoes - meanwhile, tip the canned tomatoes into a large bowl. Crush the tomatoes by hand – take your time and deal with one tomato at a time. Stir through the chilli, sugar and pepper.800 g canned whole tomatoes¼ teaspoon chilli flakes2 teaspoons sugar⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
- Add Tomatoes - add the crushed tomato mix to the bacon. Stir and use a flat-ended wooden spatula to deglaze the pan. Bring the sauce to a simmer. You can keep the sauce simmering until you are ready to cook the pasta. A longer simmer will result in a thicker, more reduced sauce with an intensified flavour. Add more of the reserved pasta water at the end to get the consistency you want in the finished dish.
- Prepare Broccoli - separate the broccoli head from the stalk. Thinly slice the stalk into rounds. You can cut any larger rounds in half to make them bite sized. Break the head of the broccoli into large florets and thinly slice them up through the stem to make tree shapes. Don’t worry if some break and crumble – you can include it all.200 g broccoli
- Cook Pasta - once the water comes to a boil, tip in the rigatoni and cook, stirring often, until al dente. Move on to the next step straight away.320 g rigatoni pasta
- Cook Broccoli - add the broccoli florets and stems to the sauce. Stir through, covering the broccoli with the sauce. Keeping the lid off, cook the broccoli until it’s softened but still has a slight ‘bite’. If you need to hurry it along a bit to match the pasta cooking time, pop a lid on for a few minutes.
- Parmesan – grate using the smallest holes of a box grater and transfer to a small bowl.40 g parmesan
- Reserve Pasta Water - just before draining the pasta, scoop out about a cup’s-worth of water. Try to get as much of the starchy froth floating on the top as you can.
- Finish Dish - drain the pasta and return it to the empty pasta pot. Pour over all the sauce and stir through thoroughly but gently. Add as much extra of the reserved pasta water to get the sauce to the desired consistency. Share among bowls sprinkled with the grated parmesan.
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