Description
This Cherry Tomato Pasta made with Spicy Confit Tomato and Chilli is deceptively simple yet bursts with irresistible flavour. The secret lies in slow cooking the tomatoes – confit style- that results in a soft, juicy and deliciously jammy consistency with an intense tomato flavour.
Ingredients
For the confit chilli garlic tomato sauce
- 500g Cherry tomatoes
- 4–6 cloves roasted garlic
- 1 white onion
- 2 chillies
- 1 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
- 200–300ml extra virgin olive oil
Tomato Spaghetti
- 240g dried spaghetti
- Parmesan for serving*
- Fresh Ricotta for serving optional
- 5g/ 3 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped.
*vegetarians and vegans: parmesan can be subbed for vegetarian or vegan-friendly alternative, and the ricotta can be omitted, or a similar suitable replacement (like almond ricotta) can be used
Special equipment
A deep ceramic roasting dish, suitably sized for your air fryer
Just the two of us….
A family of two? This recipe serves 4, but if leftovers bore you, you can halve the amount of pasta. Cook the full amount of tomato confit and switch it up the next night, using the tomato confit to make our Tomato Salad Duo Over Roasted Garlic Cannellini Bean Puree. Two days, one batch batch of prep, two meals. Thats winning on a weeknight.
Instructions
- Thinly slice the white onion and distribute it in an even layer in your roasting dish. Nestle the whole cherry tomatoes and garlic cloves on top of the onion.
- Halve the chillis and remove the seeds, and then scatter these over the tomatoes along with the chilli flakes.
- Pour the olive oil over the tomatoes until they are mostly submerged. (it’s fine if a few peek out a little, as they will soften and sink once they begin to cook).
- Agitate the ingredients until the chilli and garlic are all completely submerged.
- Let’s cook!
Air fry: Place the roasting dish into the air fryer basket. Close the drawer, and select roast. Set the temperature to 145C and the time to 45 minutes. There is no need to preheat
Oven: Preheat the oven to 160C. Once hot, place the roasting dish into the oven, and cook for 35- 45 minutes, or until the tomatoes are blistered, wrinkled and jammy. - During the last 10 minutes of cook time, bring a pot of water to the boil, with a pinch of salt, and cook the spaghetti until very al dente (it will finish cooking in the sauce).
- Drain the spaghetti, reserving 250ml of pasta water
- Once the tomatoes have cooked, drain off a little of the excess oil and set aside. See our tips and tricks below for using this flavour bomb oil in everything from salad dressings to a dipping oil for crusty bread.
- In the pasta pot, over medium heat, add 2-3 of the confit garlic cloves from your tomato confit, and smash them with the back of a spoon.
- Spoon in the tomatoes and onions, then tip in the drained pasta.
- Add a splash of the reserved pasta water, and then finely grate in a small handful of parmesan.
- Agitate the pasta, allowing the cheese to melt, and the sauce to thicken. Taste the pasta and sauce, and season with salt and pepper as needed.
- Divide the spaghetti between two bowls, top with 1 Tbsp each of fresh ricotta if using, some more finely grated parmesan, and finish with finely chopped parsley.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
You can store the tomato garlic confit oil in the fridge for up to 5 days. It’s great as a base for salad dressings, as a dipping oil for crusty bread, or drizzled over roasted veggies. Alternatively, you can freeze it in ice trays where it will keep for 3 months. Simply pop out a cube or two and defrost when ready to use.
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Cook Time: 45 min
- Category: Mains
- Method: Air Fry
- Cuisine: Italian inspired
Nutrition
- Calories: 794.87kcal
- Sugar: 2.89g
- Sodium: 48.66mg
- Fat: 73.77g
- Saturated Fat: 11.14g
- Unsaturated Fat: 60.34g
- Trans Fat: 0.04g
- Carbohydrates: 29.13g
- Fiber: 1.92g
- Protein: 6.72g
- Cholesterol: 7.24mg