Chef Joel & Jenn: Bacon Asparagus Pasta
It's been almost two months since our last edition of Chef Joel & Jenn. But for anyone that's been keeping up on the blog you know that we sold our house and moved into a new apartment. Finding time to try new recipes just hasn't been a top priority. However we're back with our latest. A 5 ingredient pasta that might be one of my favorite recipes we've tried so far.
You ready for the five ingredients? Bacon. I'll just stop there. Bacon. You're ready to make this already right? Ok Bacon, Asparagus, Pasta, White Wine, and Parmesan Cheese. That's it. And maybe some salt and pepper to taste. That's it though. 5 ingredients. The best kind of recipe if you ask me. After going to Disneyland and seeing the movie Minions (more on that later) we came home started boiling some water and began to cook.
First up was chopping the bacon and then cooking it. That took around 7-8 minutes. Then we put the bacon on a paper towel lined plate and cooked the asparagus in the same pan for 5 minutes. We put the asparagus and the bacon on the same plate. Then after drinking a lot of the white wine we poured a cup of it in to the pan in which we cooked the bacon and asparagus and let that reduce in half for about five minutes. Meanwhile we cooked the pasta and ten minutes later combined everything with the parmesan cheese. And like that we had dinner.
I'm not exaggerating when I say this is one of the best things we've cooked this year. Simple. Not a ton of ingredients. Affordable. And best of all extremely tasty. I think if I made it again I'd add in some garlic and red pepper flakes to give a bit more of a robust flavor. Otherwise though it was fantastic. One of the few meals that we've tried cooking that we've both cleaned our plates.
We did make a side dish which were these Frozen Mac n Cheese bites (you will see them in some pictures above). They were not great. I love a lot of things at Trader Joes but this was not one of them.
INGREDIENTS
1/2 lb. (8 oz.) uncooked pasta (I used linguine)
1/2 lb. (about 8 strips) uncooked bacon, diced
1/2 lb. (8 oz.) fresh asparagus, ends trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
1/2 cup dry white wine (or you can double this if you'd like
1/2 cup grated or flaked Parmesan cheese
INSTRUCTIONS
- Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted water al dente according to package instructions.
- Meanwhile, add bacon to a medium saute pan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until crispy. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add asparagus to the pan and saute in the bacon grease for about 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until cooked. Remove asparagus with a slotted spoon, and set aside with the bacon. Slowly add the white wine to the pan, and scape the bottom of the pan with a spoon to deglaze the pan and pick up all of those yummy brown bits. Continue cooking for 5 minutes, or until the wine has reduced by about half.
- When the pasta is cooked, drain it. Then add the pasta, asparagus, bacon and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese to the saute pan, and toss until combined. Sprinkle pasta with the remaining Parmesan cheese and serve immediately.
- If the pasta seems too dry, add in 1/4 cup of the pasta water after adding in the asparagus and bacon and toss to combine.
Recipe Source: Gimme Some Oven
