Simple, elegant and quick to prepare, spaghetti agilo e olio is the ultimate plate of comfort food. It’s a timeless staple of cucina povera, traditional Italian peasant-style cooking that makes the most out of the fewest ingredients or what little the peasants could afford to buy.

According to quick Internet research, this dish could have originated from the regions of Abruzzo and Campania, but the Italian Academy of Cuisine officially listed spaghetti aglio e olio as a typical dish of Lazio. To be honest, I’m not too fussed about where it comes from, only that it’s delicious and is one of my favourites to make when I’m short on time or ideas.

“Spaghetti agilo e olio” literally means spaghetti with garlic (”agilo”) and oil (”olio”). The core ingredients are spaghetti (or any noodle shaped pasta that’s not too thick), extra virgin olive oil, garlic, chillies (either flakes or fresh), parsley and cheese as an optional garnish.

Because it’s such a simple dish with so few elements, here are a few rules before you start cooking. Or you can take it with a pinch of salt and choose to do whatever you want, it’s your life.

THE RULES

Don’t burn the garlic. There’s no coming back from burnt garlic.

Use the good stuff. There are so few ingredients that you can really taste the difference in quality. So use the best extra virgin olive oil, fresh garlic without the shoots in the cloves, freshly ground black pepper - you get the point.

Prep everything ahead of time before you start cooking. Life passes you by quick when the stoves are on so this will make sure you have it all covered instead of having to still prep the garlic when your pasta is about to finish cooking.

Experiment but don’t get too fancy. Feel free to add things like sun dried tomatoes, olives, anchovies, artichokes, or lemon zest to the recipe. I’ve certainly messed around with this dish countless times but in the end, I always come back to the original. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Spaghetti aglio e olio

Servings: 2 (or 1 starter and 1 main for yourself) Cooking time: 20 minutes (or if I’m really on a roll, I can do this in less than 15 minutes)

Ingredients:

250g of spaghetti (rough rule for pasta is 100g per serving but because this recipe doesn’t really have that many other ingredients, I usually have add a bit extra)

2-4 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly (I fully endorse using four cloves, or more)

Large pinch of chilli flakes, or a thinly sliced fresh chilli (If you want more heat, use more. If you want less heat, use less or devein the fresh chillies)

A generous amount of extra virgin olive oil (I never measure but it’s roughly around 50ml)

Salt

Ground black pepper

Handful of parsley, chopped (or you can substitute with other fresh herbs like basil or chives)

Grated fresh parmesan or pecorino (optional)

Preparation:

Bring a pot of water to a boil, add salt to the water until it tastes like the sea.It will take more salt than you think but taste as you add.  

Once it comes to a boil, add the pasta and cook until al dente. It will usually say how long to cook for on the packaging. If it says 11 minutes to al dente, I usually transfer it to the pan at 10 minutes to finish it off with the cooked garlic and oil to bring it all together. (PS. Use a timer!)

While the pasta is cooking, prep the garlic, parsley, cheese (if using) and chilli flakes. You can do this before you start cooking if you aren’t confident you’ll be able to prep and cook at this in less than 10 minutes.

Add the garlic to a frying pan, pour in the oil and turn the stove up to a medium heat. Add your fresh chillies at this point if you’ve decided to go fresh. Important additional notes: You would usually add garlic after the oil has been heated up in the pan but in this recipe, I usually do the opposite. I actually want the garlic to heat up at the same time as the oil because I think it infuses the oil with more garlic flavour. Also, this step takes place when you have roughly three minutes left on your timer. (Told you a timer would come in handy)

As the garlic is cooking, add the chilli flakes and ground black pepper so it also blooms and becomes fragrant in the oil. You should cook this until the garlic slices are lightly browned, which will take around 2-3 minutes depending on your heat.

When the garlic is at the right level of brown and the oil is a pale gold colour, this is where you transfer the spaghetti directly from the pot to the frying pan with tongs. (This is also the point where timing could be a bit tricky so alternatively, you could cook and drain your spaghetti into a colander while reserving some of the pasta water in case.)

When everything is in the frying pan, add the parsley (reserve a bit for garnish) and toss around the pan for a minute. If it’s looking a bit dry, add some pasta water to thin it out slightly to your preferred consistency. It should look glossy and silky at the end.

Garnish with the reserved parsley and grated cheese. You can add some extra ground pepper to taste if that’s what you want.

Serve and eat.