Name: Pasta with Peas and Bacon
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 25 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 350 g penne; 200 g streaky bacon, chopped; 2 garlic cloves, crushed; 200 g frozen peas; 120 ml double cream; ¼ tsp black pepper; 40 g parmesan, grated

Pasta with Peas and Bacon

Short pasta tossed with crisp bacon, sweet peas, garlic and a splash of cream, finished with parmesan.

25 min total Serves 4 servings Easy

Why This Is Worth Making

Midweek, tired, with a bag of peas in the freezer and a packet of bacon in the fridge: this is the dinner for that evening. It feeds four and takes about 25 minutes from the first step.

Bacon does the heavy lifting. Cook it slowly in a dry pan so the fat renders and the pieces turn crisp. Leave the fat in the pan, as it becomes the base of the sauce. Do not drain the bacon fat. It carries the smoky flavour through the rest of the dish.

Frozen peas go into the pasta water for the last 2 minutes of cooking. They need no separate step, and they come out bright green rather than grey.

Stir in the cream and a splash of pasta water, then the pasta. Cheese goes on last. The dish should look glossy, not soupy. Leave out the cream for a lighter version and use more pasta water to bind the sauce. Add lemon zest for freshness.

What Goes With It

Green salad
Garlic bread
Sliced tomatoes
Crusty bread

Making Pasta with Peas and Bacon, Step by Step

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Cook the penne in a large pan of well-salted boiling water according to the packet, adding the peas for the last 2 minutes. Keep a cup of the water, then drain.
Cook the bacon in a large pan over a medium heat for 8 minutes until crisp. Add the garlic for 30 seconds.
Stir in the cream and a splash of pasta water and bring to a gentle simmer.
Toss in the pasta and peas with the pepper and half the parmesan. Serve with the rest of the cheese.

Notes From the Method

Cook the bacon slowly so the fat runs.

Add the peas to the pasta pan to save a step.

Use pasta water to loosen the sauce.

Taste before adding salt, as bacon and parmesan are both salty.

Changing the Recipe

In a sauce, full-fat crème fraîche can usually take the place of the double cream; single cream is thinner and more likely to split if it boils, so keep it below a simmer.
An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.

Leftovers

Keeps in the fridge for 2 days. Reheat with a splash of milk or water.