We’re once again at the peak of our growing season, and we’re making good use of our green bean bounty. In this seasonal pasta, we toss tender fusilli with snappy green beans in a garlicky olive oil sauce. We finish our pasta bowls with a savory, toasted almond gremolata.
How To Make This Recipe
For this pasta variation, we’re leaning into those sweet, herbaceous American green beans. That said, their French cousins–haricots verts–also work well and lend an earthy flavor to the dish. During ingredient prep, we like to slice our green beans on a steep bias for presentation.
Because we’re already using our forks to stab those tasty green beans on serving, we’ve opted to use fork-friendly fusilli in this dish. We also love using fusilli here because all of those little nooks and crannies trap in our garlicky olive oil sauce. However, any short pasta you have on hand will do!
Prepare Pasta & Beans
We start by boiling up to 6 quarts of water in a large pot over high heat. We tend to use an unreasonable amount of salt to season our pasta water, up to two tablespoons worth, because we enjoy our pasta well-seasoned. A watched pot never boils, so we save time by making our savory almond gremolata topping while we wait.
Once the water is boiling, we cook the pasta according to the packaging directions. We serve our pasta al dente, so we typically aim for the low side of the recommended cooking duration. The trick here is that we blanch our green beans in the same pot. So, about 2 minutes before our pasta finishes cooking, we drop in our green beans.
When our pasta has that perfect toothsome bite and our legumes tender-crisp, we drain them in a colander over the sink by giving them a little shake. Just before draining, we take care to reserve a cup of pasta water.
Strain tender fusilli and green beans.
Make Almond Gremolata
While our pasta water comes to a boil, we bring our large skillet up to temperature over medium-low heat. Once warm, we quickly toast our almond flakes in the pan. We stir those slivers consistently to prevent burning.
A warm, nutty aroma along with a telltale golden brown hue serve as our readiness indicators. The toasting process takes just a few minutes.
Once our almond flakes toast, we remove them from the heat source and pour them into mixing bowl. To our almonds, we add parsley, lemon zest, garlic, and just a pinch of salt. We set this aside. Then, we move on to preparing our sauce once the pasta is finished boiling.
Toast almonds over medium-low heat.
Toss In Sauce
Next, we prepare our garlickly olive oil sauce. In a large skillet warmed over medium heat, we add our olive oil and minced garlic. We sauté the garlic for about a minute before adding our red chili flakes along with a half cup of our reserved pasta water.
Next, we allow this to reduce for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally.
Toss pasta and green beans with the sauce blend.
Reducing our heat to low, we then add our fusilli with green beans along with our non-dairy butter. We adjust our seasonings to taste and add a little more pasta water as desired.
Ready To Serve
For plating, we start by pouring our finished pasta with sauce to a large serving bowl. We then drizzle the pasta with high-quality extra virgin olive oil. Finally, we top our pasta with our almond gremolata, a little lemon zest and some fresh-cracked black pepper.
Plate with a topping of almond gremolata.
We’re ready to dig in. To round out the meal, we often serve this dish with a side of roasted tomatoes.
We’re ready to eat!
More pasta dishes:
- Pasta With Radishes, Pomegranate & Mint
- Slow Shells In Red Wine Tomato Sauce
- Creamy Red Pepper Pasta
Recipe Card for Fusilli With Green Beans & Almonds
Here’s the recipe card for Fusilli With Green beans & Almonds. Print, share or save!
Fusilli With Green Beans and Almonds
Equipment
- Large pot
- Colander
- Large skillet
- Medium bowl
- Large serving bowl
Ingredients
For the pasta
- 1/2 pound fusilli
- 3/4 pound green beans trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces on a bias
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil plus more for drizzling
- 2 cloves garlic thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons non-dairy butter
- 1/2 teaspoon red chili flakes
- salt to taste
For the gremolata
- 1/3 cup almond flakes
- 1/3 cup parsley leaves
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest plus a little more for garnish
- 1 clove garlic finely chopped
- salt to taste
Instructions
- To a large pot, add up to 6 quarts of water. Season the water with salt as desired and bring to a boil.
- While the pasta water boils, bring a large skillet over medium-low heat and rapidly toast the almond flakes, stirring frequently to not burn, about 4 minutes.
- Remove almonds from heat. In a medium bowl, combine almonds, parsley leaves, lemon zest, garlic and a pinch of salt. Set almond gremolata aside.
- Returning to the large pot, boil the pasta as per package instructions. About 2 minutes before finishing, add the green greens and blanch.
- Drain pasta and beans in a colander, reserving 1 cup of water for use in the sauce.
- Heat the large skillet at over medium heat. Sauté olive oil and garlic in warmed skillet for 1 minute. Then, add red chili flakes and add 1/2 cup of cooking water to make a sauce. Reduce for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Turn heat to medium-low, add the pasta with green beans and non-dairy butter. Add reserved pasta water as needed to loosen the sauce and fully coat the pasta . Taste for salt and adjust.
- Transfer pasta to a large serving bowl, top with almond gremolata and drizzle with olive oil. Top with a bit more more lemon zest and fresh-cracked pepper. Serve immediately.
