This Portuguese style sardine pasta combines spaghetti with a sauce made with tinned sardines, onions, peppers, olives, tomatoes, garlic, and white wine. It’s not necessarily a traditional dish, but rather a dish made with traditional Portuguese ingredients and flavours!
Undoubtedly, the star of this dish is some local tinned sardines. Along with the red peppers and olives, resulting in some delicious Mediterranean flavours that you can easily put together using ingredients from your local farmers market. This Portuguese recipe will easily feed two, and it’s super simple to prepare.
Portuguese Style Sardine Spaghetti
Sardine Pasta: A Portuguese Style Sardine Spaghetti Recipe
2
servings15
minutes40
minutes817
kcalThis Portuguese style sardine pasta combines spaghetti with a sauce made with tinned sardines, onions, peppers, olives, tomatoes, garlic, and white wine.
Ingredients
200 g dried spaghetti
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 red pepper – thinly sliced
1 medium red onion – thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves – minced
1/2 cup pitted olives – roughly chopped
1 cup cherry tomatoes – harved
2 tbsp tomato concentrate
1/2 red chilli – sliced and deseeded
1 sardine tin – drained
basil leaves – to taste
zests of a lemon
black pepper – to taste
parmesan cheese – optional
Directions
- Place a big frying pan over a medium heat, add the olive oil and a drizzle of the sardine oil. Once hot, add the sliced bell pepper and cook until slightly soft.
- Add the sliced red onion and minced garlic and sauté for a further 2-3 minutes
- Add the olives and let everything slowly fry until it reaches a softer texture.
- Move your ingredients to one side of the frying pan and if necessary add another splash of olive oil and lightly fry your cherry tomatoes and basil leaves.
- Once the skin of the tomatoes start wrinkling, combine it with the other ingredients in the pan, and add our chilli pepper and the sardines, breaking it into smaller pieces with a wooden spoon. Season with a little salt and black pepper.
- Add in the zests of one lemon and a the white wine to deglaze the pan and bring all those flavours together. Let it sizzle for another couple of minutes. Stir in the tomato concentrate, let it simmer for another 3-5 minutes.
- While you wait, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. The ratio I follow is around 1lt of water per 100 grams of pasta. Cook your spaghetti al dente as instructed in the packaging.
- Drain the pasta, but keep about a cup of the water used to cook it. Add the pasta and half of the pasta water into the sauce pan. Stir to combine, add more pasta water if needed. Season with more salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve it with some parmesan cheese on top (we know that this goes against the rules but as cheese lovers we think that cheese goes well with everything. Who invented this silly rule anyway?).
Did you try our Sardine Pasta Recipe? Let us know in the comments how it went!
