This one pot corn and tomato pasta recipe is ready in 30 minutes and needs only a handful of ingredients! Fresh tomatoes, sweet corn, and cilantro with cream cheese and fresh cilantro. Vegetarian.
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Quick, easy dinners are the BEST kind of dinners.
This dish has only six ingredients (unless you count salt and pepper, which I obviously don’t because they’re basically like oxygen or butter or anything else that makes life possible) and takes less than 30 minutes to throw together.
Also, ONE POT! (Hip hip hooraaaaaaaaay).
This corn and tomato pasta is the PERFECT farewell to summer produce – grill up some sweet corn, throw in some fresh cherry tomatoes, and top the whole thing with fresh cilantro (although it would also be tasty with basil or parsley or a mix of your favorite herbs!)
The sauce here is light and thin (it’s LITERALLY just a bit of cream cheese with some reserved pasta water, SO SIMPLE), so if you’re used to my richer, creamier cheese sauces, this will definitely taste a little bit different.
The light cream cheese sauce and minimal ingredient list makes it that much more important to use proper seasonings and high quality produce – this just won’t taste the same with winter beefsteak tomatoes as it does with fresh, sweet cherries in the summer!
Also, if you’re cooking in advance, this recipe also makes a pretty stellar next-day pasta salad. YAY FOR LEFTOVERS!
Description
A one pot corn and tomato pasta recipe perfect for busy weeknights!
Ingredients
- 1 lb. pasta (I used orecchiette)
- 1/3 cup light cream cheese
- 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
- 2 ears sweet corn, grilled and kernels removed (you can also use frozen sweet corn)
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 cup fresh chopped cilantro, plus extra for garnish (use basil instead if you like!)
Instructions
- Cook pasta in very salty water until al dente.
- Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water.
- Drain remaining water from pasta. Return pasta to the pot and return the pot to the stove.
- Add cream cheese to hot pasta and stir until cream cheese has melted.
- Add lemon juice, grilled sweet corn kernels, and cherry tomatoes to pasta and stir to combine.
- At this point, the cream cheese should have melted and the pasta might look a little bit dry. Add a splash of reserved pasta water and stir to thin the cream cheese out a bit and create a smooth but very light sauce. (If you like, you could also add olive oil, stock, or a splash of heavy cream here).
- Taste pasta and add salt and pepper as necessary. If you started with cold corn and notice the pasta isn’t as hot as you would like, this is the time to turn the heat back on to low and gently stir the pasta until it comes up to temperature. Add additional splashes of pasta water (or olive oil/stock/cream) if it looks too dry.
- Stir chopped cilantro into the pasta.
- Serve immediately and top with reserved cilantro for garnish.
Notes
Don’t forget to salt your pasta water! Seasoning makes all the difference here since there are so few ingredients, and if you omit the salt in this recipe you’ll end up with a bland dish. Pasta water should be “salty like the sea” – so give it a good dose of salt before you cook the pasta! Also, don’t skimp on the black pepper – using fresh ground black pepper (instead of pre-ground) gives this pasta a nice extra bit of flavor!
A NOTE ABOUT THE SAUCE: A bit of cream cheese is my go-to choice for creamy pastas when I don’t have time to make a proper sauce, but if you have the time, you could try this lemon parmesan sauce or a more traditional cheese sauce (some people prefer these to using just the cream cheese since more complex sauces have more flavor).
Add grilled chicken, shrimp, seitan, or tofu to this pasta to make it a little heartier. You can also swap out any seasonal veggies if tomatoes and corn aren’t in season by you. This is great with peas, asparagus, roasted squash or sweet potato, or roasted cauliflower!
If you’d like a thicker, creamier sauce, you can double the amount of cream cheese called for in this recipe.
This recipe is only as good as your ingredients. Use fresh, in-season cherry tomatoes (they’re sweeter and more flavorful than out-of-season tomatoes!) and fresh grilled sweet corn for flavors that really shine.
These photos were updated in late 2017 and the recipe was updated to streamline and simplify the cooking process, so don’t worry if it looks a little different – it will still taste great!
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 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!