Tuna and olive pasta

This is exactly what I mean when I say that cooking italian recipes is not a big deal. You just need to know how to mix the ingredients and in a few minutes you will get a wonderful dish, light easy and fresh, perfect for the summer.

In Italy many people, especially when summer comes, are used to prepare cold pasta or pasta salad. This recipe in between a classic warm dish and a pasta salad. You can eat it the way you like best, if you love pasta salad this recipe is perfect and super quick.

You will soon discover that, as far as you can cook a perfect al dente pasta, you can cook any italian dish. It’s not unusual in fact, that every family has is own classic recipe. You just have to choose the ingredients for the sauce and it’s done.

Healthy tip

If you don’t like whole wheat pasta, you can always boost the fiber of your white pasta by cooking it, cooling it down and then reheat it, this process increase the fiber content up to 30%.

Now let’s cook!

Ingredients

  • 350gr of pasta
  • 1 small onion
  • 1 garlic clove crushed
  • 1 big can of tuna
  • 100gr of pitted olives
  • 2 tbs olive oil (only if you use natural canned tuna rather than in oil tuna)
  • salt and pepper to taste

Method

Step 1
Bring the water to a boil, and cook the pasta (see how to cook spaghetti and other italian pasta) 

Step 2
Drain the tuna and cut the olive into pieces.

Step 3
In a large pan pour the oil and the crushed garlic and the finely chopped onion. Let it cook for a minute then add the tuna and the olives. Let it cook for other 5 minutes, just to mix all the flavors, and then remove the garlic and turn the heat off.

Step 4
Drain the pasta, and remember to set aside a cup of cooking water. Turn the heat on again under the pan and pour the pasta into it. Stir fry the pasta for a couple of minutes, and toss until it’s evenly coated with the condiments. Add pepper to taste and serve.

 

Variations and suggestions
You can serve this dish either cold or warm. If you choose the cold version you should use short types of pasta such as penne, rigatoni or farfalle. If you prefer the warm one, you can also use linguine or spaghetti.

If you like, you can add few fresh tomatoes to the sauce. Chop them into 1cm pieces and add them a couple of minutes after the tuna and the olives.

You can pair this dish with a light white wine such as chardonnay.

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