It’s no secret that Jillian and I are big fans of pasta. Be it linguine, bucatini, or gnocchi, we’re happy to devour the stuff en masse.

When you think pasta, your mind probably conjures pleasant memories of heavy hearty dishes. Spaghetti and meatballs. Homemade mac ‘n cheese. You know…comfort food.

We love pasta as a main dish, but also love incorporating all sorts of different pastas into our side dishes as well!

One of our favorite side dishes is Orecchiette with Blistered Cherry Tomatoes & Basil.

Today, I’m going to share how to make this fresh, bright pasta side dish (which is going to make an appearance in a couple of our upcoming blog posts as well (because we can’t just leave leftovers as-is in our home).

To get started making our orecchiette, we gathered our ingredients.

• 1 pound orecchiette pasta
• 1 8oz package of small tomatoes 
• Fresh basil to taste (I used about 8 leaves) cut into thin strips
• 2 TBSP olive oil
• Salt to taste
• Pepper to taste
• Crushed red pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup dry white wine
• Parmesan (Grated fresh of course!)

Next, get a large pot filled with water over high heat so you can boil your pasta.

While you’re doing that, heat a large skillet over medium to medium-high heat.

You want your skillet to be warmed up before you put the oil in it, especially if you aren’t using a non-stick pan.

Why is that, you ask? When I was working as a cook many years ago, my head chef taught me one of the coolest kitchen facts I’ve ever learned:

“Hot pan + room temp oil = less sticking.”

Now, this trick won’t make a steel pan non-stick of course, but it comes pretty close.

After you add the oil and it begins to shimmer, toss your halved tomatoes in and season them with salt, pepper, and the crushed red pepper flakes.

Cook them until they start to blister. Once they are almost done cooking, add your wine and scrape up any bits of tomato that are stuck to the pan.

Allow the wine to evaporate almost completely.

While the tomatoes are cooking and the wine is reducing, turn your attention to the pasta. Cook the pasta about 3 minutes less than the box tells you to.

We don’t want to finish cooking the pasta in the water, we want to finish cooking the pasta in the sauce!

Before you dump out the pasta water, reserve some of that water to add to the sauce, about 3/4 cup.

Now drain the pasta and add it to your skillet. Mix the sauce and pasta together and add pasta water as needed to help bring the sauce to your desired consistency.

I ended up using about 1/2 cup of my reserved pasta water.

Once the pasta is cooked to the doneness you prefer (We like it al dente) taste for seasoning. If it tastes bland, add more salt! Need more spice or heat? Add some black or crushed red pepper flakes!

The final steps are to take your pan off the heat and sprinkle the pasta with your sliced basil and then grate some parmesan cheese over the whole thing!

This side dish can be served with any manner of entrees, or you can just fill up a bowl and make this your whole meal!

We hope you enjoy our recipe! If you give it a go, please leave a star rating and let us know how it worked out for you in the comments below!