KO EN Italian Main course⏱ 17 minEdit history

Aglio e Olio (Garlic & Oil Spaghetti)

Name: Aglio e Olio (Garlic & Oil Spaghetti)
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 12 min
Total time: 17 min
Yield: 2 servings
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 200 g Spaghetti; 5 clove Garlic; 5 tbsp Extra-virgin olive oil; 1 tsp Peperoncino (or chili flakes); 2 tbsp Parsley; 1 ladle Pasta cooking water; 1 to taste Salt; 1 to taste Parmigiano

A Neapolitan pasta of spaghetti tossed with garlic gently cooked in olive oil. The only ingredients are garlic, olive oil, peperoncino, and parsley — the 'empty-fridge' pasta. Master emulsifying with pasta water and anyone can make it in 15 minutes.

Ingredients

2servings

Spaghetti200 g
Garlic · thinly sliced5 clove
Extra-virgin olive oil5 tbsp
Peperoncino (or chili flakes) · to taste1 tsp
Parsley · chopped2 tbsp
Pasta cooking water · reserved, to emulsify1 ladle
Salt · generous for the pasta water1 to taste
Parmigiano · optional1 to taste

Steps

Boil salted water and cook the spaghetti 1 minute short of the package time. Reserve a ladle of pasta water.
⏲ 9 min
Meanwhile, gently cook the sliced garlic in olive oil over low heat until pale gold (don't let it burn or it turns bitter).
⏲ 5 min
Add the peperoncino and cook 30 seconds more for aroma.
⏲ 30 sec
Add the pasta and a splash of pasta water to the pan and toss hard over high heat so the oil and water emulsify and coat the noodles creamy.
⏲ 2 min
Off the heat, stir in the parsley. Loosen with more pasta water if needed.
⏲ 30 sec
Twirl onto plates and finish with a drizzle of olive oil. Add Parmigiano if you like.

Tips & Variations

Variations

Aglio, olio e peperoncino: Plenty of chili for a spicy kick (the full name).
With shrimp: Add prawns for a heartier plate.
Anchovy: Melt anchovies into the garlic oil for umami.
Lemon & arugula: Finish with lemon zest and arugula for freshness.

Tips

Of the four pastas its neighbours line up, this is the one with nothing added to hold the sauce together. Fettuccine alfredo sorts them by exactly that — "cacio e pepe uses starch alone, carbonara adds egg yolk, aglio e olio works with oil, and this one with butter" — and cacio e pepe argues that starch alone leaves no second emulsifier to catch a mistake. Here there is no cheese either. What emulsifies this sauce is starchy water, oil, and the tossing, which is why the last line below is not a flourish. Pasta e fagioli puts it in one line: this dish and carbonara "build a sauce out of the water they saved."
Which is why the water goes in and must not all cook away. An oil-and-water sauce needs the water phase to hold the oil in suspension; boil it off chasing thickness and there is nothing left to emulsify into, so it slides apart into oil at the bottom of the bowl. Cooking noodles is blunt that pasta wants less water than most people use, because thin cooking water carries too little starch to do this job at all.
The extra-virgin rule and the burnt-garlic rule are the same rule. Cooking oils names this dish: extra-virgin has a low smoke point and "the aromatics you paid for are the first thing high heat destroys", so at high heat it is not unusable but wasted — and that is the point, because "in those dishes the oil is the sauce, not the cooking medium." The same medium heat that protects the oil is what keeps the garlic pale. Gambas al ajillo takes the belt-and-braces route of starting the garlic in cold oil and bringing both up together, and pollo al ajillo is the sibling that quotes the same line.
Don't burn the garlic — low and slow to pale gold; burnt garlic turns the whole dish bitter.
Reserve pasta water — its starch is what emulsifies the oil into a silky sauce.
Finish cooking the pasta in the pan with the oil and water so it absorbs flavor.
Use good extra-virgin olive oil — with so few ingredients, it really shows.
Toss vigorously off-low heat to get that creamy, glossy coating.