Ciambotta Pasta

This ciambotta pasta is the perfect easy weeknight meal for when you only have a few ingredients in the fridge.

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A while back I posted this recipe for ciambotta, which was a staple dish of my childhood. For those who don’t know, ciambotta (also written giambotta or jambot) is essentially a thick Italian stew made with whatever veggies you have on hand. If you asked my uncle Larry, who makes an amazing ciambotta, for the recipe, he would say something along the lines of “start with garlic and onions, and then add whatever veggies you have that are going bad.” We always ate ciambotta as a kind of appetizer with an antipasto spread, and slathered it on slices of bread. But as someone who doesn’t always have fresh bread on hand but always has a box of pasta in the pantry, I decided to try tossing my cimabotta with pasta for one of my new favorite weeknight dinners: ciambotta pasta.

In a rare occurrence, my fiancé and I had the house all to ourselves two weeks ago, as my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew were visiting family in Virginia. So the weekend they left, I went through the fridge looking for all the food that would be bad by the time they came back. Plus, with Christmas coming up, I wanted to make sure we had a somewhat empty fridge to fit all our Christmas dinner goodies. I found some wrinkly peppers and tomatoes, along with half an onion wrapped in plastic wrap and of course lots of garlic. Ciambotta seemed like an obvious choice with what I had on hand, and since I wanted to bulk it up into a full-on dinner, I mixed it with some cooked pasta to make this ciambotta pasta.

CIAMBOTTA PASTA

I never really thought about it before, but ciambotta is actually the perfect thing to pair with pasta. And when making it the way I did, with cherry tomatoes, it’s essentially a rustic tomato sauce with the addition of some other veggies. I thinned my ciambotta with a bit of starchy pasta water, making it the perfect consistency to coat each and every pasta noodle. As I mentioned above, you can make ciambotta with just about any veggies, but for making ciambotta pasta I would definitely recommend using tomatoes in your mixture, to really channel that classic pasta vibe. And to really bring this dish home, I topped my pasta with some toasted panko breadcrumbs. This adds some much needed texture to the dish, as well as a welcome slightly nutty flavor.

MAKING CIAMBOTTA

Not only is ciambotta a fantastic way to use up veggies that are about to go bad and reduce food waste, but it’s also super easy to make. All you need to do is saute garlic and onion in lots of olive oil, and then cook down your veggies until they’re softened and beginning to reach that stew-like consistency. With the veggies I used, it took me all of twenty minutes to make, which was perfect because I boiled my water and cooked the pasta in the same time that it took to make the ciambotta. And of course, while I used peppers and tomatoes for my version, the beautiful thing about ciambotta is that you can start with a base of garlic and onion, and then throw in literally any veggies you have on hand. Grab a box of pasta, and you have an easy and versatile weeknight meal.