Recipe: Spaghetti with Mussels & Yellow Cherry Tomato Sauce
10m prep | 20m cook
Whatever the weather outside, this dish is sure to bring sunshine to your kitchen. The key ingredient is our sunny Yellow Cherry Tomato Sauce! Grown on the hills of Puglia in southern Italy, ripe yellow cherry tomatoes are simmered down with basil and a hint of chilli to produce this spectacularly flavourful, brilliant coloured and perfectly-balanced sauce.
Ingredients (Serves 4)
- 2 large garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 shallot, chopped
- ½ cup dry white wine
- 1kg mussels, cleaned thoroughly
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 300g jar yellow cherry tomato sauce
- ¼ tsp dried chilli flakes (optional)
- 400g dried spaghetti or other long pasta
- ¼ cup fresh basil, roughly torn
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil for pasta.
In a wide pan with lid, combine garlic, shallot with white wine. Bring to a boil and add mussels. Cover and cook, shaking the pan occasionally, for 2-4 minutes or until the mussels open. Transfer mussels to a bowl, discarding any that are still closed, and reserve the cooking liquid, straining through a fine mesh sieve. Remove half of the mussels from their shells and leave the other half intact.
In a large pan, heat olive oil over medium heat and add the yellow cherry tomato sauce along with ½ cup of mussel liquid. Stir and bring to a gentle simmer, tasting and seasoning with salt and pepper. The yellow cherry tomato sauce already has a little chilli in it, but if you prefer more heat, here is where you can add the dried chilli flakes. Add the mussels, stirring to coat in the sauce, then cover and turn heat to low or remove from heat if not serving immediately.
Cook the pasta, as per the brand’s instructions, to al dente and strain. Transfer the pasta to the sauce and mussels, adding the fresh basil, then toss to combine. Add more of the reserved mussel liquid to loosen if needed (any left over can be frozen and added to soups). Drizzle a little extra olive oil over the top and serve right away.