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Creamy Chive Pasta With Lemon
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- Total Time
- 25 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- Kosher salt and black pepper
- 1pound long noodles, like linguine or spaghetti
- ¾cup crème fraîche, heavy cream or ricotta
- ¾cup freshly grated Parmesan (1¾ ounces), plus more for serving
- 1tablespoon fresh lemon zest plus 3 tablespoons lemon juice (from 1 to 2 lemons)
- ¼to 1½ ounces chives, cut into 1-inch pieces
Preparation
- Step 1
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package instructions until al dente. Reserve 1 cup pasta cooking water, then drain the pasta.
- Step 2
In the same pot, make the sauce: Stir together the crème fraîche, ½ cup reserved pasta water, Parmesan, lemon zest and juice, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Add the pasta, return to medium heat, and cook, tossing vigorously, until the noodles are well coated, 1 to 2 minutes. Add more pasta water as needed to gloss the noodles.
- Step 3
Add the chives and stir until evenly distributed and slightly wilted. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Eat with more grated Parmesan and black pepper on top.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
People--kitchen scales are immeasurably useful tools to have in the kitchen. They start around 10 dollars online. Your culinary world opens up when you get to follow recipes as they are written, way more than measuring a quarter ounce of chives. It makes measuring foods foolproof, one of the most common reasons people mess up recipes and think they can't cook. It prevents the needless cleanup of a dozen measuring cups and spoons. Cups are for kids.
What volume of chives, for those of us without a scale?
I made this pretty much as directed. I used heavy cream because that’s what I had, though I will try with ricotta. I used fresh chives from my herb garden which I sliced into 1/2” pieces (as opposed to the suggested 1”). Very fresh,lively flavors. I served with a side of fresh spring peas. I think a side of grilled shrimp would be perfect with this pasta.
Approx. 9-1/2 tablespoons of chopped chives. A little more or a little less is fine, depending on your taste.
1 ounce of chives is approximately 2 tablespoons.
The recipe calls for between 1/4 and 1 1/2 ounces of chives, so precise measurement is evidently not required. Use as little or as much as you like.
Made half recipe. Added a handful of slender asparagus sliced in 1" lengths, and used light cream in place of the heavy. Also added some celery salt and two microplaned garlic cloves. This turned out light and delicious! So simple and easy to make--can also see myself adding frozen sweet corn kernels or maybe sliced shallots. Perfect spring pasta.
Used what I had on hand which was some cream cheese and light cream, also wanted to add a vegetable so slivered asparagus, threw it in with the pasta a few minutes before it was done. Lots of chives from the garden, I didn't weigh or measure, probably 3/4 of a cup. Very delicious.
Very good. If you grow your own chives and if you make this while they’re flowering you can break the flowers up into individual florets for a pretty garnish with an extra hit of chive flavor!
Yum!! I used mascarpone cheese and it was marvelous. I would also double the herbs, or triple, next time! I did a mixture of dill and chives. It would also be good with bread crumbs and chili flakes.
My chives clumped together and pasta water didn’t help them. I cut 1 inch lengths...maybe shorter would work better? Or sprinkling the chives on top of the plated pasta? Very tasty recipe, but something was wrong with my technique.
This is a keeper! Had the chives, but sour cream was as close to crème fraîche as I was gonna get at 5:55PM and no parm, so I just served with goat cheese. YUM! Great starter recipe that you can bend to the will of the current stock of groceries as long as you're working with the acid-lemon/chive vibe Next time I'll make it exact to the recipe and serve with lemon chicken.
i used cream cheese - worked fine, was delicious
Made this with the ricotta and a little heavy cream to loosen it up a touch. Mixed the lemon zest and some finely chopped parsley with the ricotta before combining it with the pasta water. Also thinly sliced an English cucumber into crescents, salted, and let drain in a sieve while I prepped. Tossed those in with the chives in step 3. Off heat, I added some strips of smoked salmon. I garnished with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of everything bagel seasoning. Really lovely.
I was also thinking - I wonder if cream cheese, which has a creamy tang, would work in this recipe!
Started with ricotta, which is a poor choice. I added cream cheese which helps loosen up the clumps of ricotta and thicken the sauce. Ricotta alone results in a watery sauce with clumps of ricotta curds.
I made this and it was delicious. I used egg noodles and added artichoke hearts and frozen peas per another comment! It was a hit! Easy weeknight dinner and had no leftovers. Will definitely make again!
I’ve made this a few times and most recently used cream cheese since that’s what I had in the fridge. Gosh, it was good! I think it would be perfect for a summer dinner party.
Terrific weeknight meal. Used ingredients on hand: 8 oz whole wheat spaghetti, 4 oz cream cheese, scallions instead of chives, 400g spinach (because it’s all we had), 2 cloves chopped garlic added with cream cheese. Spouse was wild about it, 17yo had two servings, and picky 12yo ate a full serving, spinach and all (which he afterward complained he didn’t like).
An easy recipe I’ll return to! I overcooked the pasta a bit, so next time I want to make sure it’s a little more al dente. One bunch of chives was about 1.5 oz for me (i ended up using closer to just 1 oz though). And I just used one lemon zest juice, which tasted right. I used ricotta, but would like to try crème fraiche for some extra tang.
Absurd easy-to-good ratio. Used crème fraiche, added peas to pasta for 1 minute.
Go for the heavy cream, not the ricotta.
I love this recipe for its flavor and ease. I always use mascarpone instead of crème fraîche and the result is great. Not too thick, not too thin.
This was a quick and tasty meal to whip up when I didn't want to spend much time in the kitchen. I was trying to use up ingredients I had on hand, so I made some substitutions: whole wheat spaghetti instead of regular and mascarpone for the cream ingredient. It turned out nicely.
I make it with bucatini! Great recipe.
Any tips on how to get the cheese to incorporate into the sauce vs lining the pot and spoon with the rest clumping to the chives?
I made this with a really nice basket ricotta and about 1/4 cup heavy cream.The results were disappointing. The sauce was very liquidy. By the time it thickened up the ricotta was clumped and overcooked. As per all the glowing reviews, I think this would work better with creme fraiche or mascarpone. If I was to add ricotta next time, I would stir it in at the end with the chives or place a few dollops on top to preserve the texture and keep the creaminess. Will try again with creme fraiche.
I made this with a 2:1 ratio of heavy cream and sour cream. I didn’t have chives in so subbed a heavy sprinkle of Trader Joe’s onion salt (omitting the salt at the end). It definitely needed a heavy hand with the pepper but overall super easy and yummy sauce. It would go well with a green vegetable but as I just got back from a work trip and didn’t have fresh veggies in (hence the onion salt) I made it without this time. Will try it with fresh arugula and maybe asparagus next time.
Made this with one bunch of chives (made about 1 oz per scale) and that was about right for 1lb spaghetti. I'd chop them to 1/2" next time, and add more slowly so they don't clump together as much. Made with heavy cream I felt the result was a bit "thin" - I was expecting a more alfredo-like sauce, but the result was delicious.
Used ricotta and the sauce curdled was not silky or creamy. Flavors were good - but what did we do wrong?
I had the same experience using ricotta. Not silky. Not creamy. The way the recipe is written is not suitable for ricotta. NY Times cooking, you need to remove that option from the ingredients list and/or create a separate recipe. If I made this again, I would use creme fraiche for the sauce and add dollops of ricotta at the end with the chives so it doesn't separate. I noticed one or two other reviewers who used ricotta and had disappointing results.
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