Creamy Goat Cheese and Spinach Linguine
on Feb 15, 2019, Updated May 07, 2025
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A handful ingredients on a crappy cold night when I could not make it out to the store turned into one of the most spectacular pastas.
A handful ingredients on a crappy cold night when I could not make it out to the store turned into one of the most spectacular pastas.
Goat Cheese Sauce
I love how goat cheese mixed with some hot liquid—be it broth, pasta cooking water, or otherwise—almost instantly turns into a creamy sauce. You can use this technique in all kinds of ways.
In Dinner Solved!, this technique features in a zucchini and mushroom enchilada. And I made this Hot, Creamy Spinach and Goat Cheese Dip 7 times in three months over the holidays—that’s how good THAT is. And this one—Rosy Hot Goat Cheese and Sundried Tomato Dip. Another keeper.
Add-Ins for Goat Cheese Pasta
Back to the pasta. You can serve it as a first course, a main course, or top it with some sautéed chicken or shrimp for a larger (obviously non-vegetarian) dinner. The spinach in the pasta sauce adds such nice color, and of course nutrition. Use baby kale or slivered chard if you prefer.
Serve it up with Romaine and Slivered Kale Salad with Lemon Dressing or Fennel and Endive Salad or one of these 3 Great and Really Simple Green Salads.
A handful ingredients on a crappy cold night when I could not make it out to the store turned into one of the most spectacular pastas.
And because one can never, ever have too many quick and easy weeknight pastas:
- 5-Ingredient Pasta #1: Thin Spaghetti with Fennel, Bacon and Parmesan
- 5-ingredient Pasta #2: Campanelle with Chicken, Sausage, Kale and Olives
- 5 Ingredient Pasta #3: Pasta with Creamy Sundried Tomato and Scallion Sauce
- 5 Ingredient Pasta #4: Whole Grain Penne with Zucchini, Tomato, and Feta
- 5-Ingredient Pasta #5: Chicken and Mushroom Marsala Rotelle
- Penne alla Vodka
More Goat Cheese Recipes!
- Leek, Mushroom and Goat Cheese Quiche
- Lemony Rotini with Goat Cheese Sauce and Spring Vegetables
- Kale Pesto and Goat Cheese Omelet
- Lardons, Goat Cheese and Spinach Frittata
- Bistro Salad with Warm Goat Cheese
- Pea Shoot Salad with Shrimp, Goat Cheese and Citrus Vinaigrette
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Creamy Goat Cheese and Spinach Linguine
Ingredients
- 1 pound dried fine linguine or other
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 onions finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon finely minced garlic
- 5 cups baby spinach roughly chopped
- Coarse or kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
- 8 ounces soft fresh goat cheese
- ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- Red pepper flakes to taste
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté for 5 minutes until tender and lightly golden. Add the garlic and sauté for another minute. Add the spinach, in batches if necessary, stirring just until it slightly wilts. Season with salt and pepper.
- Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Salt the water (but don’t over salt it, as you will be using some of the cooking water to make the sauce) and return to a boil. Cook the pasta according to package directions. Before draining the pasta reserve 1 1/2 cups of the cooking water. Return the pasta to the pot and add the goat cheese, Parmesan and the water, and stir until the cheeses melt and combine with 1 cup of the water to form a sauce. Season with red pepper flakes, and again with salt and pepper, if needed, then add the spinach mixture and stir to combine. Add as much of the remaining half cup of water as you like to loosen up the sauce (it will absorb into the pasta quickly, so make it a little moister than you might think).
- Serve quickly and serve hot, to high acclaim.
