Fresh herbs add so much flavor to a dish. In this recipe, basil, oregano, chives, thyme and parsley turn a normal bowl of penne pasta into an extraordinary main dish meal.
My instinct when looking for a pasta using a lot of herbs would be cold and vinegary. Still looking!
I've been making this for a few years and love it! I grow all the herbs in my garden. I about double the quantity of basil, oregano, and chives. I also use cherry tomatoes from my garden. I've experimented with different types of pasta, and the penne is best.
I enjoyed this a lot. At first, it seemed a bit bland, but the fresh herbs gave it a fresh subtle taste that improved over time. Like other reviewers, I made it with grape tomatoes and feta cheese. I also used extra basil
Delicious and easy! I used feta instead of goat cheese.
Wow, this was delicious. I skipped the thyme but used extra amounts of the other herbs and used a mixture of red grape tomatoes and yellow cherry tomatoes. I used feta instead of goat cheese but I think it would be very good with goat as well. And I added about 2 oz of prosciutto that I sautéed until it was a bit crispy. The combination of the fresh herbs from my garden and the tomatoes from the farmers market made this a perfect summer pasta dish. I will make this again while the produce is still good!
This was really good, although I made a few modifications. The biggest change was to use feta instead of goat cheese b/c of family preferences. Feta worked great. I used grape tomatoes and omitted the thyme. Added crushed red pepper with the garlic & tomato saute b/c we love lots of flavor. I went a little heavier on the herbs, which all came from my garden. It was super easy and quick to make.
Made it for Mother's Day Brunch and it was wonderful. It's a summer pasta and will definitely serve again. Just changed the cheese to feta as a topping and it was perfect!
I just made this for dinner with the fresh herbs from my garden and was a little disappointed. After reading the reviews (which I did not do before making it) I think I''ll try it again with a double (or so) quantity of the herbs and will mix the cheese into the pasta. It was fine, just a bit bland. Considering all the chopping of herbs required, I expected more.
I am surprised by some not-so-hot reviews. This is one of my all-time CL faves, and my husband loves it even more than I do. We don't like tomatoes but the way they bubble and char a bit in the broth is SO good! I do add more herbs and goat cheese than what the recipe calls for, and like another reviewer mentioned, I like to stir the goat cheese into the hot pasta to make a creamy coating. This dish also reheats very well as a leftover, I usually just add in a touch more goat cheese when I do so. My only complaint about this is that if you do not have an herb garden, it is rather pricey dish to make by the time I buy the tomatoes at sometimes $5/pint (= $10) and the individually-packaged fresh herbs at $3/ea. But, if you grow all or many of these herbs as a lot of readers do, I feel this would be an outstanding recipe for you! I make pasta dishes infrequently, but this always turns out well, is hearty, and it's also a great option for vegetarians or if you are in a non-meat mood. The flavor is quite rich and if you like goat cheese, you cannot go wrong.
