Creamy Spinach Pasta Delight (Printable)

Silky cream and garlic coat tender spinach and penne for a rich, easy Italian-inspired weeknight dish.

# What You Need:

→ Pasta

01 - 12 oz penne or fettuccine
02 - Salt, for boiling water

→ Sauce

03 - 2 tbsp olive oil
04 - 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
05 - 7 oz fresh spinach, roughly chopped
06 - 1 cup heavy cream
07 - ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
08 - ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
09 - ¼ tsp black pepper
10 - Salt, to taste

→ Garnish

11 - Extra grated Parmesan, to serve
12 - Freshly ground black pepper

# How-To Steps:

01 - Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente according to package instructions. Reserve ½ cup of pasta water, then drain the pasta.
02 - Heat olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add minced garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.
03 - Add chopped spinach to the skillet and stir until wilted, approximately 2 to 3 minutes.
04 - Reduce heat to low. Pour in heavy cream and stir to blend. Let simmer gently for 2 to 3 minutes.
05 - Add grated Parmesan, nutmeg, black pepper, and salt to the sauce. Allow to thicken slightly, stirring occasionally for 2 to 3 minutes.
06 - Add cooked pasta to the skillet and toss to coat evenly. Add reserved pasta water gradually to adjust sauce consistency as desired.
07 - Plate immediately, garnishing with extra grated Parmesan and freshly ground black pepper.

# Expert Advice:

01 -
  • It comes together in 30 minutes, which means you can have dinner on the table before you've even finished telling someone about your day.
  • The sauce is genuinely luxurious without requiring fancy ingredients or techniques you've never heard of.
  • Spinach disappears into silky cream in a way that makes you feel like you're eating something wholesome while tasting completely indulgent.
02 -
  • Fresh Parmesan melts beautifully into warm cream; pre-grated versions often clump and refuse to integrate smoothly, which I learned the hard way.
  • Nutmeg is essential here, not optional, because it's what makes people pause and ask what they're tasting, lifting the whole dish from simple to memorable.
  • Reserve that pasta water before you drain everything, because it's your insurance policy against a sauce that seizes up or becomes too thick to coat the noodles properly.
03 -
  • Taste your sauce before adding pasta, because once everything is combined, it's harder to adjust seasonally without affecting texture.
  • Keep your burner at medium or lower once the cream goes in, because high heat can cause the cream to break or the sauce to become grainy instead of silky.
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