Whole Wheat Pasta with Sardines, Broccoli, and Toasted Almonds
Broccoli cooked soft in the pasta water and crushed into a rough sauce with garlic, chile, and olive oil, tossed with whole wheat pasta, sardines, and toasted almonds.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
This is Puglia in a bowl, more or less, and it is the lunch I make when the cupboard is down to pasta and tins. In southern Italy the sauce would be broccoli rabe and the salt would come from anchovies. I use ordinary broccoli, which is easier to find and sweeter, and sardines, which give you the same savory backbone with far more to chew on. Everything happens in one pot and one skillet in about half an hour. It is the kind of cooking that rewards you for having good olive oil and a lemon in the house and asks nothing else of you.
The method worth stealing is boiling the broccoli in the pasta water, in the same pot, before the pasta goes in. It seasons the water, it saves a pan, and it takes the broccoli well past bright green to the point where the florets give way under the back of a spoon. That is not overcooking, it is the whole technique. Crushed into garlicky oil, those soft florets turn into a sauce that coats the pasta in a way no tender-crisp vegetable ever will. A ladle of the starchy cooking water pulls it together at the end.
The sardines go in at the very end and are barely stirred, so you get whole soft pieces of fish rather than a paste worked through the bowl. Almonds toasted in the same skillet are what make it interesting to eat, since without them everything is soft. I like a lot of chile in mine and a hard squeeze of lemon at the table, which lifts the oily fish and keeps the broccoli tasting sweet. It reheats decently, but honestly it is best about four minutes after the almonds go on.
Ingredients
- 8 oz whole wheat orecchiette or other short pasta (about 4 cups cooked)
- 3 (4.4-oz) tins sardines in olive oil, drained, soft bones left in
- 1 large head broccoli (about 1 lb), cut into small florets, stem peeled and sliced thin
- 1/2 cup whole almonds, roughly chopped
- 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, divided
- 5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 2 tbsp lemon juice, from 1 lemon, plus wedges for the table
- 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 1/2 tsp crushed red chile flakes, or more to taste
- 1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
Instructions
- Toast the almonds: Warm 1 tbsp of the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat, add the chopped almonds, and cook for three to four minutes, stirring often, until they smell nutty and are gold at the cut edges. Tip them onto a plate and set aside. They will keep cooking on a hot plate, so use a cool one.
- Boil the broccoli in the pasta water: Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and add the broccoli florets and sliced stems. Cook for six to eight minutes, until a floret gives way completely when pressed against the side of the pot with a spoon. Scoop the broccoli out with a spider or slotted spoon and leave the water boiling.
- Cook the pasta in the same water: Add the pasta to that same pot and cook it two minutes short of the package time, so it is still firm in the middle. Before draining, dip out a full mug of the cloudy cooking water and keep it beside the stove. Drain the pasta but do not rinse it.
- Build the broccoli sauce: Add the remaining 2 tbsp olive oil to the skillet over medium heat with the sliced garlic and the chile flakes, and cook for one to two minutes until the garlic is pale gold and fragrant. Add the drained broccoli and the black pepper and crush it against the pan with a wooden spoon until it collapses into a rough, spoonable sauce with a few recognizable florets left in it.
- Toss the pasta through: Add the drained pasta to the skillet with about half a cup of the reserved cooking water and toss hard for a minute or two over medium heat. The starch in the water will pull the broccoli and oil together into something glossy that clings to the pasta. Add more water a splash at a time until it looks saucy rather than dry.
- Add the sardines and finish: Take the pan off the heat, lay the drained sardines over the pasta, and fold them through with two or three gentle turns of the spoon so they break into large pieces rather than dissolving. Add the lemon juice and the parsley, then scatter the toasted almonds over the top and serve straight from the pan with lemon wedges.
Variations
- With currants and fennel seed: Add two tablespoons of currants and a teaspoon of crushed fennel seed with the garlic for the sweet and savory Sicilian version.
- Toasted breadcrumb top: Scatter coarse whole wheat breadcrumbs crisped in olive oil over each bowl in place of the almonds.
- Charred cherry tomatoes: Blister a cup of cherry tomatoes in the skillet before the garlic goes in for a sweeter, redder bowl.
- More greens: Wilt a few handfuls of torn kale into the broccoli as it crushes for a darker, more bitter sauce.
- Cold pasta salad: Dress the whole thing with an extra tablespoon of olive oil and eat it at room temperature, which is how the leftovers taste best anyway.
Storage & Leftovers
Leftovers keep three days in a sealed container in the refrigerator. The pasta drinks up the sauce overnight and the almonds soften, so I keep a few back in a jar and add them fresh to whatever I reheat. The flavor gets rounder and more savory as the sardines work through everything.
Reheat it in a skillet over medium heat with a splash of water, tossing for two or three minutes until it loosens and steams. The microwave works if you cover it and stir halfway, though the pasta softens further. A fresh squeeze of lemon at the end is what brings it back to life either way.
I do not freeze this one. Whole wheat pasta turns mealy after a spell in the freezer and the broccoli sauce goes watery on thawing. If you want a head start, boil the broccoli up to two days ahead and keep it in the refrigerator, then the whole dish comes together in the time the pasta takes.
Notes & Tips
- Use one pot for both: The water the broccoli cooked in is already seasoned and slightly green, and cooking the pasta in it carries that flavor into every piece.
- Save more pasta water than you think: A full mug. Whole wheat pasta keeps absorbing liquid after it is drained, and the difference between a glossy pan and a dry one is usually two splashes of that water.
- Crush, do not chop, the broccoli: A spoon pressed against the pan gives you a rough sauce with texture left in it. A food processor turns the same broccoli into a smooth puree that coats the pasta like paint.
- Drain the sardines well: Let the open tin sit tipped against its lid for a minute. The packing oil left behind makes the sauce slick rather than glossy, and it dulls the lemon.
- Fold the fish, do not stir it: Two or three passes with the spoon keeps the sardines in big soft pieces. Any more and they disappear into the sauce, which changes the dish entirely.
- Toast the almonds first: They need the skillet clean and the oil fresh. Done later, in the garlicky oil, they turn soft and taste of everything else in the pan.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- Pasta, broccoli, and sardines each carry a different part of this bowl. The whole wheat pasta gives it the chew and the bulk, the broccoli turns into the sauce that coats it, and the fish brings the salt and the richness that make the whole thing taste finished.
- Sardines are meant to be eaten whole, and the soft bones running through them are where their calcium comes from. They also carry omega-3 fats and vitamin D, which is a lot to get out of a tin that costs less than a sandwich.
- Broccoli cooked to the point of collapse loses none of its vitamin C to the pan when you keep the cooking water and use it in the sauce, and its fiber is what gives this pasta more staying power than a bowl of noodles usually has.
- Whole wheat pasta tastes nutty and slightly bitter, which is why it stands up to garlic and chile the way it does, and the bran left in the flour is where its fiber and its iron sit.
- Almonds toasted in olive oil are the crunch in a bowl that is otherwise entirely soft, and they bring a little more calcium along with the fat that carries the chile and the garlic across your tongue.
- As you eat, notice how the broccoli has stopped being a vegetable sitting on top of pasta and become the thing holding the bowl together, and slow down enough to find the almonds.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use broccoli rabe instead?
Yes, and it is the traditional choice. It is more bitter, so boil it a minute or two longer and add an extra squeeze of lemon at the end. Broccolini works the same way and sits between the two in flavor, though it wants a shorter boil because the stems are slender.
Do I really have to cook the broccoli that long?
For this dish, yes. Tender-crisp broccoli stays in separate pieces and rolls off the pasta rather than coating it. The long boil is what lets it crush into a sauce, and the sweetness that comes with it is the point rather than a compromise.
What if I do not like sardines?
Flaked canned tuna packed in olive oil goes in the same way at the same moment and gives you a milder bowl. It is a different dish, since sardines bring the oily, savory depth that stands up to all that garlic, but it is a good one.
Will this work with regular pasta?
It will, though whole wheat is what I reach for here because its nuttiness matches the almonds and the sardines rather than disappearing under them. Whatever you use, pull it two minutes early, since it finishes cooking in the skillet with the broccoli and the cooking water.