- Stanley Tucci shares a cozy lentil pasta recipe, calling it hearty and easy for winter.
- Tucci uses a classic trick to break thick spaghetti noodles into small pieces.
- Lentils help to make this meal both filling and budget-friendly.
Stanley Tucci knows a thing or two about pasta. The Tucci in Italy star has shared tons of amazing pasta recipes over the years, from a quick-and-easy Bolognese sauce to his mom’s broccoli rabe pasta. It’s safe to say when Tucci talks about pasta, we pay attention.
Recently, the The Devil Wears Prada 2 star shared an Instagram reel walking followers through how to make a simple, lentil-based pasta dish that he calls the “perfect winter recipe.” What’s more, he describes the dish as “hearty, healthy and easy to make,” which sounds like a dream come true to us, especially on busy, chilly days.
“I’m going to make a lentil pasta,” Tucci explains in the reel. “So the first thing is olive oil—extra-virgin olive oil in there—a nice big glug of it. And then, I’ve got carrot, celery, onion, garlic, and that’s gonna go in here—and it’s gonna cook down. Then I’ll show it to you in a little bit.”
While his mix of chopped veggies simmers away, Tucci uses a genius method to break up regular spaghetti into smaller pieces. “This is actually spaghetti grossi, which means [it’s] a little bit thicker,” he says. “I’m taking a half a pound of it here, and I’m gonna wrap it up in this towel. This is a traditional way to make this dish—this is the way my grandparents always did it, my grandmother and my mother.”
Tucci wraps spaghetti noodles in a dish towel then rolls the towel up, resulting in the pasta breaking into smaller pieces each time he rolls. “It’s incredibly satisfying,” says Tucci. “And [the pasta] just really goes well when it is in this fractured state with the lentils … it gives really beautiful texture to the dish.”
Returning to his now-simmered veggies, Tucci adds “two big handfuls” of lentils to the pot along with enough water to “a little more than cover them.” Then, he adds fresh basil, salt and homemade tomato sauce he says is similar to a marinara. “You can add a bay leaf to this, too,” he says. “I’m too lazy to go outside and get one.” If you have a bit of jarred sauce on hand, you could pour it in at this stage, or opt for some of your favorite canned tomatoes with a bit more seasoning.
Tucci lets the mixture cook for about 20 minutes, adding that if the lentils soak up the water quickly, you’ll want to add more water. “You want them to be just that little al dente,” he says, “and then, in the meantime, I’m going to cook this pasta and I’m gonna put it all together.”
To serve Tucci’s lentil pasta, he recommends keeping the pasta and the sauce separate to prevent the pasta from soaking up all the liquid. Another classic pasta hack? Tucci says to pour a bit of oil into the cooked pasta to keep the noodles from sticking together. Once the pasta is placed into bowls, he tops each pile of cooked spaghetti with lots of lentil-tomato sauce.
“I mean really so good,” he says after having a taste. “You could do this with sausage if you wanted to. You could put a little pancetta or guanciale—you could cook that down first before you did this. But this is really such a nice version of it because it’s a vegetarian dish and really, really good for you.”
We’re down to try any Tucci-related pasta recipe, but this one is even more intriguing given the delicious veggies and the health benefits of lentils. What’s more, Tucci has lots of great ideas for topping this healthy, protein-and-fiber-packed dish.
“Put a little Parmigiano on it or a little Romano on it,” he says, “a drizzle of olive oil, and that’s it—really hearty, really good.”
