Creamy Spinach Pasta

If there's one thing that gets me every time I'm running on empty, it's ricotta-spinach ravioli with nothing but melted butter on top. It's not clever, it's not fancy, it's just the dish I reach for when I have no energy left and still want dinner to feel cozy and blissful. So when the weather turns properly hot and my brain starts craving cold pasta again - my biggest summer weakness, no contest - I couldn't help but chase that same ravioli feeling into a whole new dish.

This is the result: my own creation, built around a blended ricotta and spinach cream standing in for that beloved filling, tossed with pasta while it's still faintly warm, and topped with smoked salmon and cherry tomatoes for freshness and bite. It sounds like it should take forever. It's ready in 30 minutes. It's the kind of dish that tricks people into thinking you tried hard when really you just turned on a blender.

Creamy Spinach Pasta – About the Dish

Pasta fredda - cold pasta, literally - is as much a category as a single dish in Italy, and for good reason: when it's 35°C outside, standing over a pot of simmering sauce for an hour is nobody's idea of a good time. The whole point is to let the pasta do most of the work, then dress it in something that needs little more than a blender or a bowl, so dinner comes together without heating up the kitchen any further than it has to.

Most versions lean on tomatoes, olive oil or pesto, so a ricotta-based one is a bit of a detour - closer, really, to what you'd find tucked inside a good spinach ravioli than to a typical pasta fredda. That's exactly the idea here: take the creamy, herby filling I'd happily eat by the spoonful, thin it into a pourable sauce, and let smoked salmon and fresh cherry tomatoes do the job butter usually does - adding richness and a little brightness on top.

Creamy Spinach Pasta – Recipe

Ingredients – Advice & where to find them

• Ricotta: go for a good, fresh whole-milk ricotta rather than the cheapest tub you can find - it's blended completely raw here, so its flavor and texture carry the whole sauce.
• Baby spinach: fresh, not frozen, and no need to cook it first - it wilts down instantly once it hits the rest of the ingredients in the blender.
• Smoked salmon: a decent quality one makes a real difference here; off-cuts or trimmings work just as well as neat slices, and they're usually cheaper.
• Cherry tomatoes: pick the ripest, sweetest ones you can find, since they're served practically raw and undressed on top.
• Garlic: just one clove is enough - it stays completely raw in the blended cream, so a little goes a long way.
• Fresh basil: skip the dried stuff entirely here - it's what keeps the sauce tasting fresh rather than just "green."
• Lemon: you'll need both the zest and the juice, so give it a good wash before zesting - it's what stops the sauce from tasting flat.
• Extra virgin olive oil: since it's doing raw, unmasked work in the sauce, reach for one you actually enjoy the taste of.
• Orecchiette (or another short pasta): anything with ridges or a cupped shape works best to hold onto the creamy sauce.

Cooking Tips

• Reserve a little pasta water before draining - it's there to loosen the sauce once it meets the pasta.
• Let the pasta cool for about 10 minutes before saucing it, and skip the fridge - you want it just warm, not hot, so the ricotta cream stays smooth instead of splitting.
• Blend the sauce until it's completely smooth: creamy but still pourable, never stiff or grainy.
• Toss the pasta with the sauce right before serving - no resting time, or the ricotta firms up and the pasta soaks up all the sauce.
• Add the smoked salmon and the extra cherry tomatoes only at the very end, so they stay distinct instead of getting lost in the sauce.
• Make sure your sauce is salty enough -altough the smoked salmon brings some, an underseasoned sauce will taste very bland.

Thirty minutes, one blender, and dinner somehow tastes like you tried. Buon appetito!