Mary Berry's 'delicious' bacon pasta is quick to make—just 4 fresh ingredients
An easy way to make any pasta dish taste good is to sprinkle some crispy bacon pieces on top. Mary Berry does the same, with a few extra ingredients for "delicious" flavour.
Pasta is the perfect blank canvas for an afternoon or evening meal, so it's easy to make something truly delicious with a simple pasta shape and sauce pairing. Adding vegetables to your favourite pasta dish is also incredibly easy, particularly leafy greens and stems like asparagus and broccoli.
Mary Berry uses pasta's versatility to her advantage with her huge repertoire of recipes, including this incredibly simple bacon and pesto pasta. As debuted in her Foolproof Cooking series, Mary's recipe notes read: "Full of delicious textures and flavours, this quick-to-make bacon and pesto pasta salad is ideal for a weekday lunch or supper." The dish cooks in as little as 10 minutes and calls for just four fresh ingredients- the rest, you likely already have in the cupboard.
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This dish hits every marker; bacon for crunch, broccoli and tomatoes for colour and nutrients, onion for an earthy base and green pesto to tie everything together.
No pasta recipe is complete without cheese, and for this dish, Mary recommends using parmesan shavings.
Mary Berry's pasta recipe
Ingredients
- 150g broccoli head, thick stem removed
- One onion, roughly chopped
- 350g penne
- 300g smoked back bacon, cut into small pieces
- 150g basil pesto
- 150g cherry tomatoes, halved
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 25g Parmesan shavings, to serve
- 25g pine nuts, to serve (optional)
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Prepare the broccoli by chopping it into even-sized florets, then slicing the thick stems into chunks. The stem adds a delicious sweetness to the dish, and has as much fibre and nutrients as the broccoli head.
If you're adding pine nuts to the dish, heat a small frying pan on the hob and add the nuts. Fry them over medium-low heat for a few minutes until toasted and golden.
Now, cook the pasta and onion in a pan of salted, boiling water according to the pasta packet instructions. Three minutes before the pasta is finished cooking, throw in the broccoli.
Drain the pan's contents and place the broccoli separately in cold water to stop the cooking and set the colour. Allow the pasta to cool.
In the meantime, fry the chopped bacon pieces in a large, dry pan over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes, stirring often, until crisp and golden-brown.
Keep two tablespoons of the cooked bacon and add the remainder to the pasta.
Finally, sir, add the pesto, tomatoes and broccoli to the cooked pasta mixture. Season generously with salt and pepper.
Serve the pasta in a large bowl and scatter with toasted pine nuts, the reserved bacon and Parmesan and serve.
