Our delivery of beautiful fresh rainbow chard from Avo & Co had me inspired to make a quick and easy but flavour packed pasta. You can further simplify this recipe by not adding roasted garlic, however, we found that searching for these gorgeous gems of garlic cloves hidden in the pasta was a delightful part of eating this dish.
Ingredients:
- 1 bunch of rainbow chard
- 1 packet of short pasta (we used strozzapreti because it looked pretty but any form of short, dried pasta would work)
- 1 head of garlic to roast
- 2 large cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 lemon (more if you prefer extra zing)
- A pinch of dried chilli flakes (optional)
- Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
- Sea salt to taste and to salt the pasta water
- Goat cheese to top (omit if you’re vegan and add more lemon juice and salt to taste)
Methods:
Roasted garlic
If you’re in a rush, you can omit this step and just stick with sauteed rainbow chard with pasta.
- Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
- Next, remove any loose pieces of skin from your garlic, leaving most of the skin on the cloves.
- Chop the top off your garlic clove.
- Drizzle the top of your garlic (cut side up) with EVOO.
- Wrap the entire garlic up in tin foil
- Bake for 30 minutes, checking to see when it’s soft. If it’s still hard after 30 minutes, bake until soft. When done, it should spread like butter.
Roasted garlic takes on a beautiful, sweet and nutty flavour when baked. You can use this to spread on toast or combine with olive oil and lemon juice for a dipping sauce (you can use this with roasted artichokes too).
Pasta with rainbow chard
Prepare your ingredients:
- Wash your rainbow chard well and chop the stems into 1/2 cm pieces. Chop the leaves roughly and keep the stems and leaves seperate.
- Dice two cloves of garlic.
- Halve your lemon.
- Crumble your goat cheese.
- Boil a huge pot of water for the pasta. Season with plenty of salt so it tastes like the sea.
Everything happens at once when you start cooking and you want to ensure your timing is just right so the pasta doesn’t sit too long before being served or the rainbow chard doesn’t overcook. I would wait for the roasted garlic to come out of the oven and take the cloves out of the skins before starting to cook the pasta and the rainbow chard.
- When your pasta water is at a rolling boil. Pour your pasta in, give it a stir and set your timer for however long the packet says it will take to cook. A store-bought short pasta usually takes 8-10 minutes. A more rustic pasta might take 10-15 minutes – keep an eye out on this. A perfect al dente pasta makes all the difference.
- In a large saute pan, heat some EVOO and add the minced garlic.
- Once the garlic starts to be aromatic (do not allow it to burn), add in the rainbow chard stems. Sautee these on high then turn the heat down to medium-high and allow to cook, covering if necessary.
- Once the stems are almost cooked, add in the rainbow chard leaves, salt to taste and a pinch of chilli flakes (optional). Continue to cook until they are slightly tender and sweet.
- Squeeze in the juice of 1/2 a lemon and taste. If you need more, add more lemon juice to taste. Once cooked, set aside.
- When your pasta is cooked, reserve a cup of the pasta water then drain the pasta. At this point, you may want to toss in a little goats cheese and a few roasted garlic cloves. Roughly combine everything. You can also add in a bit of EVOO to prevent sticking (optional).
Top your pasta with the sauteed rainbow chard, cloves of roasted garlic, an extra squeeze of lemon juice and a drizzle of EVOO and serve immediately.
You may want to toss all the ingredients together in a separate dish before serving. This helps combine the flavours but doesn’t look as good when served. When I do this (because I’ll always go for flavour over aesthetics), I’ll reserve a cup of pasta water and add a little at a time to help combine the pasta and chard.
When serving, I always include a bottle of the best EVOO I can find, lemon halves, extra goats cheese and sea salt. This is so people can adjust the flavours as they like. I always add a generous glug of EVOO myself, especially if it’s a good bottle like Lia.
A great side would be a simple salad of halved cherry tomatoes and cut cucumber, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt to taste. You could also try our Five-Minute Kumato, Tomato and Basil Salad.
Hope you enjoy this recipe! The gorgeous rainbow chard and cherry tomatos and cucumber for our side salad was provided by Avo & Co whom I helped develop this recipe for. Check them out. They deliver amazing produce that you’ll love!
Note: I was not paid for this post but I was paid to do the photography for Avo & Co’s weekly vegetable box. Find out more about how Avo & Co started in our interview with brothers Cedric and Clement. I was a loyal (paying) subscriber for ages before helping them shoot their veggie boxes.
