This one pot pasta recipe is ready in 30 minutes and needs only a handful of ingredients! Fresh tomatoes, sweet corn, and cilantro with an easy cream cheese sauce and fresh cilantro make this pasta a hit. Vegetarian.
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Quick, easy dinners are the best kind of dinners.
This particular dish has only six ingredients (unless you count salt and pepper, which are basically like oxygen or butter or anything else that makes life possible, so obviously I don’t) and takes less than 30 minutes to throw together.
It even has cream cheese, which I actually almost never use but is sometimes just completely 100% necessary. In this case, it makes a delightfully creamy sauce that lends a great richness to the simple combo of pasta, corn, and tomatoes.
I am especially in need of fast and easy meals this month, because I have been traveling nonstop over the last few weeks while still trying to keep up with the whole grad school thing (WHAT was I thinking) and planning this oh-so-awesome conference that you should all go to.
I was in Portland with my parents for a few days (HI, PARENTS) and then in Seattle for the International Food Bloggers Conference (full recap coming soon! ish). and THEN I was in Pennsylvania for the Big Harvest Potluck.
It was all a whirlwind, but SO much fun. Except now I’m catching up (sort of) on sleep and work and blogging and more work. So cooking a whole big delicious meal, while high on my list of priorities, isn’t really happening.
Also, I have been VERY busy binge watching Gilmore Girls ever since it was released on Netflix a whole six days ago. You gotta have priorities.
But I digress. Basically, this is my new favorite go-to quick and easy weeknight dinner. It’s also the perfect farewell to summer produce.
Sweet corn and I are the best of friends, and the crunch and bright pop of flavor the veggies give this dish make it so much more than ordinary pasta. Also, it’s ready in 30 minutes and only takes one pot. Winning? I think so.
- 1 lb. orecchiette pasta
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 cups sweet corn kernels
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes, quartered
- ¼ cup cream cheese
- 1 cup fresh chopped cilantro
- Cook pasta in very salty water until al dente. Drain and set aside. Return pan to stove.
- Heat olive oil in the pan over medium-high heat.
- Add sweet corn and cherry tomatoes to pan and sauté until corn is cooked through, about 3 minutes.
- Add cream cheese to pan and stir until cream cheese is melted, about 2 minutes.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Return pasta to pan and toss to coat with sauce.
- Reserve 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro for garnish. Toss remaining cilantro with pasta.
- Serve immediately and top with reserved cilantro for garnish.
Completely lacked flavor. It was definitely quick and easy to make, however I even added garlic and more salt than should ever go in to food just to give it some sort of taste. I’m not sure how I would alter the recipe, but I definitely will not be making this again
Sorry you didn’t like it! Did you salt the pasta water? That’s generally the culprit behind lackluster pasta.
Hi! This dish looks really tasty! I would really like to make it but I think there is something wrong with the ingredients list. It currently just says “1 lb. orecchiette pasta 1 lb. orecchiette pasta” and nothing else. Thanks for sharing this awesome looking pasta recipe 🙂
Hi Catherine! Thanks for letting me know the recipe wasn’t working – I had a bit of a glitch with my recipe software but reloaded it on my end and it should be working fine now! Hope you enjoy the pasta!
I was looking for a pasta recipe using summer corn and tomatoes and this looked like a good option. I made a few changes. I also added some chopped baby zucchini. I cooked in regular olive oil as I find extra virgin too strong flavored. I cooked the zucchini and corn together then added the tomatoes and cooked about 30 seconds. Added the cream cheese plus about 4 ounces of goat cheese and 3/4 cup of reserved pasta water. Swapped chopped basil for the cilantro. Used about 10 fresh basil leaves, a cup would be too much for this recipe.
Tasted delicious! Next time I think I would increase the number of veggies as I like a lot. I would probably add more of everything, maybe some sauteed onions would be good too or fold in some baby spinach leaves at the end and let them wilt a bit!
I’m so glad you liked it – thanks for letting me know! Your changes all sound delicious – this is a great “blank canvas” food, and I love switching up the veggies depending on the seasons 🙂
This was a great quick recipe for a weeknight. I made the following modifications:
-Reduced the amount of pasta-less carbs more veggies!
-Added cumin, which went great with the corn and cilantro
-Used more cream cheese
I’m glad you liked it! Cumin sounds like a great addition – thanks for letting me know how it turned out!
Um veggies are carbs. Unless you’re eating ice chips everything is a carbohydrate that you eat. I don’t mean to be rude but if you’re trying to cut carbs you should be thinking about the amount within the food rather than what type of food it is…
Good recipe…I’ve made this about 3 times now, and am back for the instructions to make it once again. I don’t usually comment on recipes, but wanted to point out that salting the water in this recipe is a necessity if you want it to turn out well. The 2nd time I made this, I’d had my bf boil the pasta as I quartered the tomatoes and I forgot to tell him to salt the water…the result was an incredibly bland dish which we could barely eat. Salt makes all the difference here! I also found that the amount of cream cheese in this recipe didn’t seem quite enough to coat all the pasta, but rather than add more, I save some of the water when I drain the pasta and add just enough to thin the cream cheese a bit and make enough to coat the pasta.
Thanks for letting me know how it turned out! Yes, salting your pasta water is ABSOLUTELY necessary to bring out the flavor of any pasta. Most of the time when a dish tastes bland, it’s because it hasn’t been properly seasoned. I’m glad you like the recipe, and thanks for the review!
As I’m not a fan of tomatoes, I swapped them for jarred roasted red peppers. I agree with others that the flavor left something to be desired (although I did leave out the cilantro because I forgot to buy some) and added extra cream cheese for extra creaminess (that, and I had nothing else to put it on). I think next time I’m going to melt in some cheddar so there’s a slight bite to it.
Cool website!!
I’m sorry, but this was absolutely awful. I don’t know if I did something wrong or what, but all I could taste was the olive oil. I followed the directions to the T. The only good part of it was the corn. I threw it all out because no one, including myself, could eat it.
Soup
I was pretty impressed with this dish. I did add more cream cheese than the recipe called for – half of a 250g tub – and gluten free pasta. I think I’d like to try this recipe and use basil instead of cilantro next time.
This was fantastic. I used shells instead of orecchiette since that was the closest thing I could find and dried cilantro since fresh proved to be elusive. I just eyeballed the cilantro since I wasn’t sure what the conversion of dried to fresh would be. I also added a wee bit more cream cheese for extra creaminess and coverage. (I hate nothing more than pasta with too little sauce coverage.) I also sauteed up remaining mushrooms I had left from another recipe and added those to my plate only. I will definitely be making this again.
This was bland but I used light cream cheese. So I combated that problem with adding about 1 cup of shredded mozzarella (the high-test stuff…not the low fat!) It tastes better. Still seems like it’s missing a spice. I made it for tomorrow, maybe the cilantro will set in better overnight.
These are the recipe that I like , delicious.
I am loving the addition of corn to this pasta! And orecciette pasta is my fav!
I’ve been on the traveling bandwagon too since the did August! After BHP the boy and I went to Montreal and I feel like I’m playing catch up now. Love love this pasta. It’s one pot, it’s 30 mins, it’s delicious! Win win!
Definitely could devour a bowl of this pasta right now.. it looks SO delicious and creamy. I have never used cream cheese in a pasta before so this is something that I must make. Thanks for the great recipe!