Valerie Bertinelli's Angel Hair with Fresh Tomato Sauce _ Food Network

**Valerie Bertinelli's Angel Hair Pasta with Fresh Tomato Sauce: A Summer Delight**

Welcome to the kitchen as we prepare a delightful summertime meal featuring Valerie Bertinelli’s angel hair pasta with fresh tomato sauce. Known for her charm and culinary expertise, Valerie shares a recipe that highlights the beauty of using peak-season tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and basil to create a flavorful dish that screams summer.

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### **Prepping for the Recipe**

Before diving into cooking, there are a few key steps to prepare:

1. **Boil Water for Pasta**: Start by bringing a large pot of water to a boil on your stovetop. This will be used later to cook the angel hair pasta.

2. **Prepare Garlic Cloves**: While waiting for the water to boil, ensure you have four peeled garlic cloves sliced thinly. Slicing them thin allows the garlic to melt into the oil and infuse it with rich flavor.

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### **Creating Garlic-Infused Olive Oil**

The foundation of this dish lies in the garlic-infused olive oil:

1. **Heat Olive Oil**: In a pan, heat a quarter cup of high-quality virgin olive oil on medium-low heat. Valerie recommends using extra-virgin olive oil for its fresh, green grassy flavor.

2. **Add Garlic Slices**: Once the oil is warm, add the thinly sliced garlic cloves. It’s crucial to keep the heat low so the garlic softens rather than crisps. A slight golden hue is ideal; avoid browning.

3. **Season with Salt and Red Pepper Flakes**: As the garlic infuses the oil, sprinkle in a pinch of salt and red pepper flakes for a spicy kick. Let this mixture simmer gently to enhance the flavor.

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### **Chopping the Tomatoes**

Next, focus on the star ingredient—fresh tomatoes:

1. **Selecting Tomatoes**: Use your choice of tomatoes: on-the-vine, heirloom, or Roma. Valerie emphasizes using fresh, ripe tomatoes for their natural sweetness and juiciness.

2. **Slicing Technique**: For a professional touch, use a serrated knife to slice the tomatoes thinly. Valerie shares that Sammy Hagar taught her this technique, which makes slicing easier and more precise.

3. **Dicing Tomatoes**: Once sliced, dice the tomatoes into bite-sized pieces. This ensures they will mix well with the pasta without overpowering it.

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### **Combining Ingredients**

Now, bring everything together:

1. **Infuse Oil with Garlic and Spices**: While the garlic oil simmers, prepare the tomatoes by tossing them in a bowl. Pour the infused oil over the tomatoes, allowing them to soak up the flavors.

2. **Add Basil**: Chiffonade fresh basil leaves into thin ribbons and mix them into the tomato mixture for brightness and freshness.

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### **Cooking the Pasta**

1. **Boil Pasta**: Once the water is boiling, add a substantial amount of salt—enough to make it taste like seawater. This ensures the pasta will be flavorful.

2. **Cook Angel Hair Pasta**: Add the thin angel hair pasta to the boiling water and cook until just soft (about 3 minutes). Use a fork to test for doneness.

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### **Mixing Pasta with Sauce**

1. **Combine Ingredients**: Once cooked, drain the pasta and transfer it back into the pan or bowl where the tomatoes are waiting. The hot pasta will begin to soften the tomatoes and combine with the garlicky oil to form a silky sauce.

2. **Incorporate Parmesan**: Grate fresh Parmesan cheese over the pasta for added creaminess and saltiness. Valerie prefers grating her own for the best texture.

3. **Toss Gently**: Use tongs to toss the pasta, ensuring it is well-coated with the sauce. Be sure to lift the bottom of the bowl to distribute any settled tomatoes evenly.

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### **Plating and Garnishing**

1. **Garnish with Basil**: Sprinkle a few basil leaves over the dish for freshness and color.

2. **Serve Fresh**: Transfer the pasta to a plate, garnishing with additional Parmesan if desired. The vibrant red of the tomatoes, green of the basil, and golden garlic make this dish visually stunning.

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### **Final Thoughts**

This recipe is a testament to the beauty of fresh ingredients and simple techniques. Valerie’s approach allows the natural flavors of summer tomatoes, garlic, and basil to shine, creating a dish that feels light, bright, and utterly satisfying.

Next time you’re looking for a quick and delicious meal, give this angel hair pasta with fresh tomato sauce a try. It’s perfect for impressing guests or treating yourself to a special dinner. Buon appetito!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi I'm Valerie Bertinelli you may know me from kids baking Championship or Valerie's home cooking  today we are making angel hair pasta with a fresh tomato sauce this is the perfect summertime meal  and you're using tomatoes that are in the peak of their season where they're just delicious and ripe  and juicy and you just want to eat tomatoes all the time so the first thing we want to do before  we start cooking together is you want to get a big pot of water on your stovetop while you're  waiting for that to boil you want to also have some garlic cloves four of them already peeled  so let's get cooking the way we're going to make this fresh tomato sauce is we're not going to  cook the tomatoes it's summer let's really taste how delicious they are so we're going to infuse  some olive oil with some garlic a little bit of red pepper chili flakes and those two things in  the olive oil is really going to flavor up your pasta so the first thing we want to do is get  these beautiful garlic cloves sliced up you want to slice them nice and thin because you  want them to melt down into the oil and really Infuse all this garlic flavor and you really  want to use high quality olive oil something where you really taste that that beautiful  green grassy flavor that virgin olive oil can have and virgin olive oil just means that it's  only been pressed once it's really nice fresh beautiful olive oil all right all these guys  are sliced up let's get some olive oil into our pan you just want to get the pan to medium low  want to get a quarter cup into it basically what you really want to cover the bottom of the pan  there you go then you want to get all your garlic that you just sliced up  get that into the oil and it's really important that you keep this on a low or medium temperature  because you really don't want to cook the garlic all the way through maybe it gets a little light  brown but definitely don't crisp it up you really want to soften it up and really Infuse the oil  with all that garlic flavor all right while the oil gets infused with the garlic let's chop  up the tomatoes today we're going to be using tomatoes on the vine you can use heirloom you  can use Roma whatever happens to be fresh in your Market you're going to infuse them with the oil  a little bit of Basil almost like a bruschetta but with angel hair pasta you take your tomatoslice into it what we're going to do is start getting it into diced formyou're adding like a little road map for it once you get these diced  and then this diced you're going to have nice little bite-sized pieces  you know who taught me how to slice Tomatoes This Way not my Noni not my mom Sammy Hagar that's who  taught me to slice Tomatoes This Way Sammy used to come over and cook with us and he loves to cook  he likes collecting wine so we're just gonna go through all of these Tomatoes just like that  more often I will use a serrated knife and serrated knives can really be used on tomatoes  so much more easily when your knives when you find they're just not quite as sharp as they need to beI'm going to turn the flame off of the oil because it's sauteing and I don't want it  to saute too much we'll just let it sit there soak up all that garlic super important thing  to remember don't refrigerate your Tomatoes it really kind of takes away the flavor and the  sweetness and even the consistency of them it kind of turns them grainy and that's what you  really don't want in a tomato especially when in the summer they're so beautiful and so perfect  so I'm looking at my oil over here and it's looking like we can start adding  a little bit of salt and the red pepper flakes so let's go take a look at our oiloh that looks beautiful yeah it's just softened up in the oil let's get a little salt in thereand the red pepper chili flakes and that's what gets it nice and spicy  so I'm going to let this Infuse the oil a little bit longerall right let's get all of these gorgeous Tomatoes into the bowl  then we're going to cover them with that oil that we just made we just infused our own oil you guys  that's how easy it was there we go so we've got our Tomatoes we just need to get that oil  right over it what I'm going to do is just get all of the garlic in there there we goGorge mix it up God so shiny and beautiful vibrantso let's put this to the side and get our pasta cooking we're almost finished with our meal  nice boiling water now what we do want to get in here is a lot of salt because you want your  pasta water to be like the ocean nice and salty because that's how you're going to flavor your  pasta this pasta is so thin angel hair it's going to cook so quickly and get it right inI'm gonna get my pasta Fork out and you want to start just get it down just a little bit  soften it down this way it's all going to cook together there we go now that's not going to  take long maybe three minutes max so while that's happening that's got our parmesan grated here's  the deal you can buy grated Parmesan in the market yes and I have done that plenty of times  but the thing about this pasta is you want really the best ingredients because along with the pasta  water the tomato juice that beautiful infused garlic oil this is going to make your pasta sauce  so we're going to cut about a cup I like a little extra cheese thoughI am going to get the basil quickly chiffonadeyou're going to grab a few leaves and you're going to make them into these little ribbons and  it really does make chopping basil go a little bit faster you want to open them up flatten them out  and then once you flatten them out you're going to roll them up so just roll as tightly as you can  and once you've done that you grab your knife and you put them into little ribbons  I think the pasta is actually done by now that's how quick it happensokay let's get the pasta in with the tomatoes you want to bring your Tomatoes over to the pastaso by using a pasta fork and seeing all that pasta water that's dripping off of  the angel hair that's going to help you build your saucenow let's bring it back over here get it mixed together so that hot pasta just went on room  temperature tomatoes so what's going to happen is that hot pasta is going to start to just soften  the tomatoes the starchy pasta water will mix with the other ingredients and make a silky sauce  getting the parmesan on top that nice Airy parmesan and I'm going to get some tongs out  and start getting all the tomatoes that were on the bottom of the bowl  try to get those onto the top of the pasta and mix it all together oh you can stop oh the pasta just  smells so good the parmesan that's salty flavor of the parmesan and the beautiful bright red tomatoes  that are perfectly ripe you can even see the beautiful pieces of sliced garlic getting in  there I'm going to throw a little bit of the basil on you save a little bit for garnish speaking of  garnishing and plating let's get started because I want to eat it first we'll put it in a pretty Bowljust a little bit out at a time don't worry about these Tomatoes falling to the bottom  just want to get your pasta in here first and then you can plate it with the tomatoes  so all that garlic infused oil that you made all that's now flavored your pasta  all right let's get these gorgeous Tomatoes right on topI'm going to save a few from my plate there you go that is how quickly you just put dinner on  the table isn't that delicious okay so let's plate it this is the best way to Plate pasta grab it up  bring it over to your bowl and as it goes down start twisting your tongs  twist twist twist twist awaysome tomatoes to go on ita bit more of the basil and then last but not least get some more parm on there Let It Rainlook at that that's a beautiful serving of pasta let's have someumoh my goodness when the tomatoes are fresh like that it adds a whole other dimension of flavor  than when you've cooked a sauce over the stove all day it is so delicious so screamed summer  I hope you guys had fun cooking with me I sure  love cooking with you come back and see me anytime thanks for coming by\n"