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We are big fans of cauliflower, especially roasted cauliflower.
Now if you start with nutty roasted cauliflower, and add some Parmesan, some chopped prosciutto, a few roasted tomatoes, some garlic, and stir in some tender greens like baby arugula or spinach, and some pasta, you are firing on all taste cylinders.
Tomatoes for the sweet and acid, greens for the bitter, and Parmesan and prosciutto for the salt and umami make this pasta dish almost impossible to put down once you start.
My father found this recipe in a recent issue of Fine Cooking, one of our favorite magazines. We adapted it a little, found that we wanted more cauliflower and less pasta than the original recipe called for, and made a few other minor changes.
Pasta with Roasted Cauliflower and Prosciutto Recipe
If cherry tomatoes aren't available, you can skip them and add a few chopped sun dried tomatoes to the dish at the end.
Ingredients
- 1/2 medium cauliflower, cored and broken up into 3/4-inch florets (4+ cups) (see How to Cut and Core Cauliflower)
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 1/2 teaspoons dried sage
- 4 large cloves garlic
- 4 ounces of prosciutto
- 8 ounces orecchiette pasta
- 5 ounces baby arugula or spinach, cleaned and coarsely chopped
- 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Method
1 Roast cauliflower and tomatoes: Preheat oven to 425°F. Lay out cauliflower and tomatoes in a roasting pan, coat with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast until just lightly browned and cooked through, about 15 minutes.
2 Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil (1 teaspoon salt for every quart of water).
3 Add prosciutto mixture to cauliflower, return to oven: While water is heating, pulse garlic, sage, and prosciutto together in a food processor until coarsely chopped. Once cauliflower has browned lightly, remove from oven, toss cauliflower with garlic prosciutto mixture, and return to oven to cook for 5-7 minutes more.
4 Boil pasta uncovered (rolling boil) for 9-10 minutes until firm, but done (al dente). Reserve one cup of pasta liquid. Drain water from pot.
5 Add cauliflower, tomatoes, arugula (or spinach), and Parmesan to the pasta. Stir in enough cooking water to moisten. Add salt and pepper to taste.
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Recipe adapted from Fine Cooking magazine.
Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family's recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.
Pasta with Roasted Cauliflower and Prosciutto
Oh, my, this was soooo good! We didn’t have any tomatoes on hand, and we didn’t miss them at all. It was tasty, had excellent texture, and is great comfort food for a chilly fall day. Definitely will make again!
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Delicious! I made this exactly as written in less than 30 minutes! Simple with lots of veggies makes it healthy too :) Love the proscuitto and parm too, YUM! The only thing I won’t do next time is add salt to the cauli/tomatoes before roasting. I thought it was a little bit salty because the proscuitto and parm add enough. But either way, fantastic with a nice glass of crisp white :)
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I’m a little confused as what to do with the tomatoes… can someone clarify?
After you’ve roasted them with the cauliflower, toss them in at the end with the pasta. ~Elise
I just made this for lunch today. I used a whole wheat shell pasta, a whole head of cauliflower rather than 1/2, and I diced up the spinach really fine. This is really a great tasting, healthy lunch. Thanks so much for the recipe.
This was absolutely delicious! I made a few changes that I was happy turned out great. I used diced pancetta in lieu of the prosciutto, and cut up about 10 fresh sage leaves. I love the flavor of fresh herbs so much more than dried. I also sauteed up the spinach in a little bit of olive oil before I put in in the dish. Wonderful!