Spaghetti alla Puttanesca

Name: Spaghetti alla Puttanesca
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 20 min
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 200g / 7oz spaghetti (, or other long pasta); 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (, plus more for drizzling); 2 garlic cloves (, finely minced (knife, not garlic press)); 3 anchovy fillets (, finely minced (Note 1)); 1/4 cup pitted black olives (, preferably in oil, quartered (Note 2)); 1 tbsp capers (, drained (Note 3)); 1/4 tsp chilli flakes ((red pepper flakes)); 400g / 14oz can crushed tomato ((or hand crush whole canned tomatoes)); 1/2 cup water; 1 tsp fresh oregano (, roughly chopped (sub 1/4 tsp dried)); 1/8 tsp kosher / cooking salt ((or 2 pinches table salt)); 1/8 tsp black pepper; 1/4 tsp sugar (, if needed (depends on tomato quality, Note 4)); 2 tbsp fresh basil (, roughly chopped (Note 6))

Instructions

Prep:5minCook:15min

Recipe video above. Spaghetti alla Puttanesca is a traditional Italian pasta from Naples with a sauce based on pantry essentials. This plants it firmly in the (excellent) emergency-meals collection!You don't need much salt in Puttanesca sauce because the olives, capers and anchovies provide the seasoning. Don't skip the anchovies - sauteeing it cooks out the fishy flavour and it just dissolves in the sauce, leaving behind savoury flavour you can't get from just plain salt. You'd have to have a finely attuned palette to even know it's in the sauce!

Updated at: Mon, 28 Jul 2025 00:36:10 GMT