Name: Pasta with Spinach Cream Cheese Sauce
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 25 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Italian-inspired
Ingredients: A drizzle of olive oil; A sprinkle of parmesan; 8 oz. long pasta of your choice (linguine was used); 1/4-1/3 c reserved pasta water; 2 garlic cloves, peeled; 1 c spinach, fresh or frozen (defrosted); ¼ c cream cheese, cubed; ¼ c feta cheese, crumbled; 2 tbsp parmesan cheese, grated; ½ tsp sea salt; ¼ tsp ground black pepper

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A quick & easy cream cheese sauce for your favorite pasta

A pasta dinner with a sauce made from cheese AND a vegetable removes just a little bit of the guilt, right? Well, I thought so. This recipe contains a cream cheese sauce made with salty feta, funky parmesan, aromatic garlic, and healthy spinach.

Pasta with Spinach Cream Cheese Sauce_closeup — An easy peasy pasta dinner with a spinach-speckled cream cheese sauce.

The combination of a few simple ingredients actually packs a punch of exquisite flavor. And adding a little pasta water helps it to beautifully coat each strand of linguine, fettuccine, spaghetti, or whatever you like!

Pasta with Spinach Cream Cheese Sauce_sideview — A 5-ingredient pasta dinner recipe that the whole family will love!

The consistency of the sauce is not “creamy” like an alfredo or cream-based sauce. However, it does not skimp on flavor and visual appeal with the lovely specks of green laced around each strand of pasta. My baby actually loved eating bite-sized pieces of this pasta for many days after, so your kids will love it too!

What you’ll need to make it: Ingredients & Tools

Gather up some garlic, cheeses, and spinach that is fresh or frozen. And a few other ingredients and cooking tools.

Here’s the lineup:

Ingredients

Pasta (a long type, such as linguine, fettuccine, spaghetti, tagliatelle, etc.)
Pasta water–to loosen up the cream cheese sauce and make it silky
Fresh or frozen spinach (just defrost it in the microwave for a few minutes first)
Cream cheese (or substitute with vegan cream cheese)
Feta cheese (here is an amazing vegan feta recipe if you want to make your own)
Parmesan cheese (or substitute with nutritional yeast)

Tools

Food processor or blender–it will Simplify Your Life! I used a small processor. A Ninja blender will also work well to create an even smoother sauce.
A large nonstick pot (this product link is an updated version of the pot shown in the photos)
Tongs

Certainly, a fabulous sauce for pasta has never been so quick and easy to make. You will have a tasty dinner in minutes!

How to make Pasta with Spinach Cream Cheese Sauce in 3 easy steps

Pasta with Spinach Cream Cheese Sauce_closeup 2 — The garlicky spinach cream cheese sauce is meant to hug the pasta, not drench it in creaminess.

Step 1: Boil the pasta and reserve some of the pasta water

Use any pasta that you like, preferably a long pasta or one that hugs sauces well (e.g., rotini, cavatappi, rigatoni, etc.). Be sure to season the water rather liberally with salt until it resembles that salinity of seawater and cook the pasta to al dente or just under it. And the most important step is to reserve 1/4 to 1/3 cup of the pasta water before draining the pasta.

Spinach Cream Cheese Pasta Sauce_boil the pasta_1200px — Season the water well and reserve some of the pasta water to loosen the sauce.

Step 2: Make the spinach cream cheese pasta sauce (in a food processor or blender…easy peasy!)

The pasta sauce is made quickly and easily by simply throwing everything into a mini food processor. The mini food processor really comes in handy because it’s much more compact to store in the cabinet. And it requires much less time and effort when it’s time for cleaning up. I love it!

Anyway…back to the sauce! You will end up with a better blend of ingredients if you blitz them in steps. So, begin with the garlic to make sure it is finely minced because large chunks of garlic in a sauce are not the most palatable.

Pasta with Spinach Cream Cheese Sauce_4 steps to make sauce — Blitz each of the ingredients in steps to achieve a well-blended sauce.

To the processor, first add the garlic…blitz to a mince. Then, add the spinach and blitz again until well shredded. Next, add the cheeses and pulverize to a nice thick paste-like sauce. Perfect!

Step 3: Mix the pasta with the sauce and pasta water

Once the pasta has been drained, dump it back into the pot off of the burner. The pasta should still be hot when it is time to add the sauce, but if it has cooled down too much, place the pot back on the burner on low heat. Add a couple of tablespoons of the pasta water to unstick the pasta if needed.

Spinach-Cream-Cheese-Pasta-Sauce_add-sauce-to-pasta_1200px — Add pasta water as needed to loosen up the sauce.

Dump the sauce onto the pasta and add a couple more tablespoons of the pasta water to help loosen up the sauce (that comes to a total of 1/4 cup of pasta water at this point). If the sauce is struggling to evenly coat the noodles, add more pasta water, a little at a time.

Remember, this sauce is not super creamy or saucy, per se. It is meant to hug the pasta and provide delicious flavor.

Done! Time to eat.

More quick and easy pasta recipes

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Pasta with Spinach Recipe_Cream Cheese Sauce_Pin 1

Pasta with Spinach Cream Cheese Sauce

Yield: 4

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

This easy and elegant pasta with spinach recipe is made with fresh (or frozen) greens, aromatic garlic, rich cream cheese, and pungent feta and parmesan. Just boil some pasta and make the sauce in your food processor. Dinner is only a few steps away!