Multi Cooker

Leftover Spaghetti With Tomato Basil Sauce

  • Main Dish



If that container of leftover pasta in the back of the fridge is just daring you to make your move, this tomato and fresh basil recipe is the correct response. It’s garden fresh Italian goodness in just minutes.

  • Servings 3
  • Preparation
  • Cooking

Ingredients

  • 4 cups cherry tomatoes
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • ¼ white wine
  • ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • ½ teaspoon garlic powder
  • 4 cups cold or room temperature day old cooked spaghetti
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • 1 cup fresh basil
  • Parmesan cheese, optional
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions

  • Set the multi cooker to the saute function.
  • Set the timer to 20 minutes and the heat to high. Press start.
  • When the multi cooker beeps, add the cherry tomatoes, olive oil, pepper flakes, and garlic powder. Saute for 5 minutes.
  • Add the wine and cook for the remaining cooking time.
  • When the cooking is done, add the spaghetti, lemon juice, and basil, and toss to combine.
  • Season with salt and pepper and serve.

THE LEFTOVER PASTA DILEMMA

There’s something special about al dente pasta blanketed in tomato sauce. But sometimes, you make a whole box of pasta and there’s not enough sauce to go around. What to do with that leftover pasta? Now, there’s nothing wrong with making a new sauce and ladling that sauce over plain pasta by any means. But we think spaghetti is best when its fabric is interwoven and infused with the flavor of the actual sauce.

HOW TO INFUSE FLAVOR INTO LEFTOVER PLAIN PASTA

By definition, plain cooked pasta is, well… plain. So here’s our trick for not only creating a delicious Italian tomato sauce – but infusing the pasta itself with the essence of the sauce, making it a main player again. For this recipe we make the sauce first, and then add the leftover pasta to the sauce so it soaks in the heady Italian flavors as it warms up. We use the Tiger Multi Cooker’s saute setting on high heat with the lid open to saute cherry tomatoes, garlic powder and red pepper flakes in olive oil until fragrant. Then we build the sauce with chicken broth (and maybe a splash of white wine). Finally we add the leftover pasta, which soaks in the flavors as it heats up – making it better than new!

RECIPE TIPS AND VARIATIONS

  • This works best if you don’t rinse the pasta after cooking it. Flavors from pasta sauce bind to the starch in cooked pasta. Some home chefs rinse spaghetti under cold water to stop the cooking process. But don’t do that! That rinse under the tap washes away the valuable starch, making it impossible for the sauce to penetrate the pasta with its magic.
  • Add the fresh basil leaves last. We stir the basil into the hot spaghetti immediately prior to serving. The goal is that the leaves wilt with the heat, but still retain their garden freshness and optimal peppery goodness.
  • Cook with the multi-cooker lid open. This is a highly active recipe and you’ll be adding ingredients in batches and stirring a lot. Luckily the saute setting is meant for open lid cooking.
  • Use freshly cooked pasta instead. You can cook a fresh batch of boiled spaghetti and use it instead of leftover pasta for this recipe, but it is imperative that you undercook the pasta (just shy of al dente). That’s because the pasta will continue to cook as it soaks in the sauce in the multicooker when you mix it in.

Products used in this recipe

Electric Multi-Cooker COL-A40U

The compact cooker for daily use. A 2.6 qt (2.5 L) multi-cooker that allows you to make great-tasting dishes w […]

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Multi Cooker

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