How to Make Pasta and Peas: What Italians ACTUALLY Eat at Home

This is another pasta dish that Italians actually eat at home. You won't find this on any restaurant menus because it's not fancy. It's more like dinner on a Tuesday. So unfortunately you're going to have to make this one at home. And it's really the heart of the Mediterranean diet. It's simple ingredients, tastes great, it's cheap, and you feed your whole family on the cost of a takeout burrito. And it's really easy to put together and the best part about this recipe is you probably have all the ingredients to make it. So let's do it. The first thing we're going to do is heat up a generous amount of olive oil and saute some onions. And I have one yellow onion that I chopped up kind of on the smaller side. I'm going to cook these until they're translucent and then we'll add in the peas. We have a bag of frozen peas. This is a pound. You probably already have these in the freezer waiting to get cooked in something. Now we're just going to mix this up and saute the peas for a few minutes and then we'll add in some water. In the meantime, we'll season this up with some salt and pepper. Now we'll go in with some boiling water. If you have one of these, it's great. Instead of adding cold water into here and then waiting for it to get hot, the kettle's hot. So as Jamie Oliver would say, before you start this recipe, get your kettle on. And if you don't have one, you could just boil it in a pan. And I'm using about four cups of water right now. We could always add more water if we need it. We're just going to let these peas simmer for a few minutes. And the secret to making this one so creamy is blending up half of the peas. Using a hand mixer, blend up half of the peas and it really makes a difference in this dish. That one step takes it from a pasta with peas and cheese to a creamy pasta with peas and cheese. And this hand mixer really comes handy. You could use it in a lot of different recipes blending up some beans making creamy bean pasta or blending up tomatoes with cheese and making a really nice sauce. So I can't tell you how many times I use this to take a simple dish and just with this little technique making it something special. And when I was a kid, it was usually just pasta, peas, and cheese. But this little step really makes a difference. And one cool thing about this, I'm not promoting it, but it's a lot easier to clean than a food processor. You just take this little piece off and you just wash this. So it's a lot easier to clean up. You don't have to go digging in your cabinets for a blender or a food processor. And then after all you do is just clean this. So we have half the peas blended and we have a pound of pasta. So if you're making this recipe, pound the pasta, pound the peas. If you want to cut it, half a pound of pasta, half pound of peas. Blend half of them. So let's add in the pasta. We have ditalini. I'm going to throw the pasta right in there. We'll mix this up. And you can kind of take a look at the water level right now in here. You can see there's not a lot of water in here. We might have to add a little more. But you always want to be able to add more. You can't take water out. So I would leave the water as is right now. We're going to add in the blended peas. That'll really brighten it up in there. We'll mix this up. You can see that color already, that bright green. And that's exactly what you want. So we're going to let this pasta simmer for about 10-15 minutes. It actually takes about 10-15 minutes because it's simmering in this pan with the peas. It takes a little longer. So don't worry, you're not going to overcook the pasta. And once the pasta is ready, we'll add in some cheese. And if you look here, I want to show you this. If you look at the center of the pan, there's like this little lake of cream right on top of the peas. And this is exactly what you want. This is a sign that you have a good water to pasta and pea ratio. So we're just going to let this one simmer. It's a creamy pond of peas right in the middle because you're making a creamy pasta. So the pasta is ready. Take a look at this. You can see there's like this little center here with a little bit of cream left. And if I stir this, you can see there's not much water left in this pan. So the pasta pretty much sucked it all up and cooked. So now what we're going to do is turn off the heat and add in some cheese. I have about a cup of Pecorino Romano. A cup and a half actually. A cup and a half of Pecorino Romano. I'm just going to dump it all in. It's very important to turn off the heat. Definitely turn it off and then stir it in. So this is kind of like the second secret of making this creamy pasta. You need a lot of cheese. So blending the peas and also a lot of cheese will guarantee a creamy pasta with peas. So as I'm stirring this, you can see that it's just getting creamier. Take a look at that. Whatever water was left in here is blending with the cheese and it's creating that velvety sauce in here. This looks great. So pretty much once it's ready, you got to serve it. Because as it sits, it's just going to cook even more. So let's get this on a plate. And it's really a great dish to break up the week because it's cheap. You could do this once, twice a week. Save a lot of money and then you can splurge on fish and steaks on the other days. So we'll get in here with a spoon. I'll show you how creamy this is. Look at that. And I'll also show you this one's been sitting for a few minutes and you can kind of see what it turns into as it sits. I mean I think you could probably taste this one through the screen. Look at that. So good. So good. That one bite literally makes me feel like a little kid because this reminds me of my childhood. We always had pasta and peas. There's always peas in the freezer. This is like the meal when they say like we have food at home. This was it. Not exciting. It was definitely just pasta, peas, and then I would just load it up with cheese. But this is way better, way creamier. And if you look at this, you could really feed your whole family with this one pot. It's been sitting a little bit but you could see it still looks great. You could feed at least four to six people and it really doesn't cost that much money. It's really like a longevity meal. It's got a lot of fiber, a lot of vitamins, a lot of nutrients. It's definitely a nourishing bowl of pasta. So you definitely have to try this recipe. And if you like this one, I have a pasta with lentils linked right here. Try that one out too. It's really good. And let me know how you like it in the comments. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the bell.