This recipe for fennel pasta was taught to us in a culinary lesson. Our favorite! The flavor profile of the dish is given a special twist by the fennel. We mix it with a recipe for pepperonata-grilled sausage to create a family-style feast!
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 40 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
Ingredients
- 2 large fennel bulbs
- 2 onions
- ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 cup white wine
- 1 (16 ounce) package linguine pasta
- 4 roma (plum) tomatoes, seeded and cut into 1/4-inch dice
- 2 lemons, juiced
- ¼ cup pine nuts
- 1 cup freshly shaved Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Trim fennel bulbs; cut in half, lengthwise, and remove tough cores. Thinly slice fennel bulb halves lengthwise. Peel onions; slice in half lengthwise, and thinly slice onions lengthwise.
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat; cook and stir fennel and onions until onions are translucent, about 8 minutes. Pour in white wine, turn heat up to medium-high, and cook, stirring often, until wine has nearly evaporated and fennel and onions begin to brown, 8 to 10 minutes.
- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil; cook linguine at a boil until tender yet firm to the bite, about 11 minutes; drain and keep warm. Reserve 1/4 cup of pasta water.
- Stir tomatoes into fennel mixture and cook until tomatoes soften, about 3 minutes. Mix lemon juice and pine nuts into vegetables.
- Stir linguine into fennel mixture and mix in reserved pasta water. Cook pasta and vegetables over high heat, stirring until hot and thoroughly combined, about 2 minutes. Serve in a large serving bowl topped with Parmesan cheese.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 481 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 57 g |
| Cholesterol | 7 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 8 g |
| Protein | 14 g |
| Saturated Fat | 4 g |
| Sodium | 236 mg |
| Sugars | 4 g |
| Fat | 20 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
So glad to find this recipe. I made it this evening exactly as written except that I seasoned the fennel and onions with a small amount of kosher salt and ground black pepper as it was being sauteed. This is absolutely delicious. My husband gave big thumbs up too. I will definitely make again.
Great recipe…I substitute wild fennel and shallots. I will make this pasta dish again.
Love this! I changed some small unimportant things just because I wanted to use what I already had in the house, but this recipe is delicious.
The next time I’ll add 3 cloves of garlic.
OMG! Absolutely delicious!! My husband and I love to eat raw fennel; I have never cooked with it before. This was the perfect dish to make. The only substitution I made was a can of diced tomatoes for the plum tomatoes. I had all other ingredients on hand. I cannot wait to make this again, exactly as the recipe is written, for the rest of my family.
The only thing I did different was add the parmesan cheese into the sauce at the same time as the pine nuts and lemon juice. Neither hubby nor I love fennel, but we regularly get it in the CSA box and keep trying different recipes. This is the best recipe we’ve tried yet. We both enjoyed this and will make it again. By the way, I used the full 1/2 C of oil and didn’t find it to be too oily. Oh, and I guess I did make one other tiny change: using canola instead of olive oil. Olive oil doesn’t like to be cooked; better to use a high heat oil on the stove.
I cut the oil in this recipe in half because I’m watching my calories and this dish was still really greasy. If I make it again, I will try halving the olive oil again to bring it down to 2 tbsp. I liked the flavors, but my daughter and my husband thought it was just so so.
Wow 🙂 Thank you for this recipe. This is my first review here – I absolutely had to do it. Made as written, except I had only half the pine nuts called for. Oh well – this met all expectations and preferences. It’s a healthy, rich, vegetable-based pasta dish and the ingredients included as written play well together without any flavor disappearing during the cook time. And thank you for helping me like fennel! I want to, and fennel cooked this way, a little caramelized with onion, makes a rich dish that would be great as a side or main dish. When I smelled it after adding the wine I was sure it would be great. I thought about adding garlic, meat, red pepper flakes, or butter and anything like that would either overpower the more delicate flavors here and/or make it much less friendly to a middle aged woman’s waistline. One notable item – added salt is unnecessary because the fennel essence, lemon juice, tomato, wine, and Parmesan satisfy most all but the most salt-addicted palate.