This pasta with basil, tomatoes, and mozzarella is quick, low calorie, healthy, and my favorite meal in the world.
I ate this for dinner almost every night during law school. It is my comfort food when I am sick, and my celebration food when I am happy. It’s what I would eat for dinner every night if my husband and kids wouldn’t judge me (thereby making this pasta my primary motivation for outliving my husband).
Amazing facts about this pasta
First and foremost, it is delicious. You have fresh tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil mixed together with hot pasta. The mozzarella gets warmed up just a little so it tastes almost as though it were freshly made. The tomatoes, pasta, and mozzarella are all tossed together with a bit of chicken stock from the pasta, and a bit of fresh buttermilk (adding some tang, creaminess, and probiotics).
Second, this dish is super fast to make. I can make it in about 15 minutes. The primary time limitation is on how long it takes to cook the pasta.
Third, this dish is pretty low calorie while it gives me my fix when I’m craving pasta. You don’t need to use olive oil, because you end up with a sauce from a combination of chicken stock (slightly reduced from cooking the pasta), buttermilk, and some of the tomato liquid. I usually try to go heavier on the tomatoes and cheese than on the pasta to keep it lower carbohydrate. And you can switch to a low-carb pasta if you want to further reduce the carbohydrates.
Fourth, this dish stands alone as a solid healthy meal. It has protein and fat from the cheese, vegetables due to the tomatoes (and basil). My running joke with myself in law school was that this pasta gave me servings of both fruits and vegetables, since tomatoes could arguably be either. It also has buttermilk, giving it probiotic status.
Ingredients
This dish has only a handful of ingredients: chicken stock, pasta, tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, buttermilk. Because there are so few ingredients, it’s important to ensure they are good quality.
Chicken Stock
I typically use one of the two commercial brands I discussed in my detailed post on chicken stock: Kitchen Basics or Better than Bouillon. In the post I go into exactly why they’re not quite as good for you as a homemade stock – although probably not bad for you. Regardless, I typically end up using a commercial brand anyway because it’s hard to argue with convenience and a nearly infinite shelf life. And I try to save the good stuff (the homemade stock) for soup for the kids.
The Pasta
Most dried pasta brands are decent. You don’t need anything fancy. As long as you cook the pasta in chicken stock, and you stop cooking it as soon as it hits al dente, you’ll be good.
It’s hard to go wrong on pasta shape with this recipe. My favorite shape of pasta this dish is probably medium size shells or orecchiette, but I’ve gone through many phases. In high school, I used linguine or fettucine. In law school, I used pasta shells and then egg noodles (extra protein!). Most recently, while I’ve been tryign to lose baby weight, I’ve been using low-carb fettucine-style pasta called “Carba Nada,” which has extra protein and fiber.
When I’m feeling special, I’ll use fresh pasta.
Point being that you can really make any pasta work in this dish. Except maybe lasagna. Or angel hair.
The Tomatoes
The tomatoes I’m more concerned about. It’s really, really easy to find bad tomatoes. Especially in winter. But I’ve learned that usually cherry tomatoes are a fairly safe bet. Not sure why, but they seem to be more resilient and retain a fresh flavor better than others. So I recommend using cherry tomatoes. You can do red cherry tomatoes, or yellow or purple or a medley. Just keep in mind the color will slightly affect flavor (see my post discussing the impact of various tomato colors here).
That said, despite my cherry tomato recc, if you have good tomatoes or (even better) a good heirloom tomato – go for it!!
The Mozzarella
The mozzarella needs to be fresh mozzarella that has been suspended in water. If you buy mozzarella that is packaged dry, even if it says “fresh mozzarella,” the texture will not be the same. It gets a bit gluey, and you can really tell in this dish. So get the kind that is suspended in water.
I usually go for cow’s milk mozzarella. But Buffalo mozzarella is great in this dish too – although it is a bit more tangy and higher in fat (and calories) than the easier-to-find cow’s milk mozzarella.
Basil
Get “sweet basil” if you can find it. I usually buy a plant – it’s cost effective and the basil they sell as plants is almost always sweet basil (not Thai basil, which has a more licorice flavor).
If you do not have fresh basil, JUST SKIP THE BASIL. Do not try to sub with dried basil. The flavors will not work. I eat this dish often with no basil.
Cooking Technique
This pasta is very simple to make. But you do have to be precise about how you put it together. There are detailed (but easy) instructions in the recipe below. Follow them or you could end up with a melted blob of mozzarella.
This is what it should look like after mixing, if you do it correctly. See, no melted cheese? Just pleasantly warm cheese.
Print
Quick pasta with basil, tomatoes, and mozzarella
My favorite food in the world.
- Total Time: 15 min
- Yield: 1 serving 1x
Ingredients
3–4 cups chicken broth
2 ounces dry pasta (any will work; my favorites are medium shells, orecchiette, fettucine, or linguine)
1 cup chopped cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped fresh mozzarella
1 tbsp chopped basil
2 tbsp buttermilk
Optional: 1 tbsp olive oil
Instructions
1. Start the pasta.
Bring the 3-4 cups of chicken broth to a boil (you need enough broth so that the pasta will be fully covered once added to the saucepan). Add the pasta. Follow the directions on the package regarding how long to cook it.
2. Cut up the tomatoes.
While the pasta cooks, cut up the tomatoes until you have 1 cup of chopped tomatoes. For cherry tomatoes, I usually cut them in half 2x (i.e., I cut them into quarters).
Place them in the bottom of the bowl you’re going to eat from, kept to one side of the bowl.
You’re going to arrange everything in a very specific way now. Why? Because you’re going to pour hot pasta into the bowl over the tomatoes/mozzarella/basil. You want to make sure the pasta and the tomatoes to combine first – the pasta heats the tomatoes, the tomatoes cool down the pasta, and then you can toss everything together. The mozzarella will warm up, but not melt this way. Picture of what this will all look like pre-pasta below. Tomatoes are at the bottom of the pile, mozzarella on top, and basil at the very top.
3. Cut up the fresh mozzarella.
Cut up the fresh mozzarella into pieces about the same size as your tomato quarters (about 1/2 to 1/4 inch cubes). Pile the chopped fresh mozzarella on top of the tomatoes.
4. Cut up the basil.
Wash and chop the basil until you have 1 tbsp. Place it on top of the fresh mozzarella.
5. Add the buttermilk.
Pour 2 tbsp of buttermilk over the tomatoes. It can go anywhere, because it’s going to end up at the bottom of the bowl anyway.
6. Add the pasta.
Once the pasta is done cooking, pour off most (but not all) of the broth. I use a slotted spoon to hold back the pasta, and I pour out most of the broth. I try to leave about 1/4 – 1/2 of a cup.
Then I pour the hot pasta and remaining broth directly over the tomatoes. I keep away from the fresh mozzarella as much as possible. Picture below of what this should look like:
7. Toss everything together and enjoy!
- Cook Time: 15 min
- Category: Dinner
- Method: stovetop
