Aglio e Olio (Garlic Oil Spaghetti)

Aglio e Olio – Garlic Oil Spaghetti – is the classic Italian pantry pasta made with just 3 basic ingredients: pasta, garlic and olive oil. Use a good olive oil, sauté the garlic gently and get the salt amount right, and you’ll be blown away by how delicious something so simple can be!

“Aglio e Olio is not bland!”

A friend once casually mentioned in passing that they tried Aglio e Olio and that they couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, it was pretty meh and bland. To which I gasped loudly in sheer shock (nobody ever accused me of over-reacting😆) and launched into a passionate defence of this classic Italian pasta. So simple – just garlic and olive oil – but it’s sooooo delicious!

After some grilling, it became clear where the problem was, and I’m here to preach the same to you:

1. Don’t skimp on the oil;

2. You’ve gotta salt it properly.

Get those right, and I promise it’s can’t-stop-eating-it delicious!

PS Algio e Olio is pronounced “alio olio”. Silent “e” and silent “g”. The literal translation is “garlic and oil” which is exactly what this pasta is!

Ingredients in Aglio e Olio

Here’s all you need to make this classic Italian pasta.

• Spaghetti – I use a whole 500g / 1 lb packet to serve 4 to 5. Allow 100 – 125g / 3.5 – 4.4 oz per person for a pasta like this without a meaty sauce.

  Spaghetti no. 5 is the standard thickness I use for Spaghetti Bolognese, Baked Spaghetti and most spaghetti recipes. But any long strand pasta – or even short pasta – will work!

• Garlic – It’s gotta be fresh! Six big cloves.

• Extra virgin olive oil – Pull out your good stuff, because it’s a key flavour in the sauce. We only cook over medium-low heat so the garlic doesn’t burn and the lovely olive oil flavour is preserved.

  Note on quantity – The recipe uses 1/2 cup which may sound like a lot, but for 5 servings it’s only 1.6 tablespoons per person, and there’s no other fat in the sauce. You can use less, but remember – the oil is the sauce, so less means less flavour and coating!

• Parsley – A good amount of parsley adds freshness and colour into this pasta. But if you don’t have any (and there have been many times when I’ve made this late at night when I haven’t), feel free to use chives or dried parsley instead.

• Dried chilli flakes (red pepper flakes) – This adds a little bit of heat and some nice little red specks in the pasta. Feel free to leave it out and add a good grind of black pepper instead.

• Salt – We need some for the pasta cooking water, and some added into the sauce. If you don’t use enough, it will taste bland! So please use the amount specified in the recipe card. 🙂

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How to make Aglio e Olio

The key is to sauté the garlic slowly enough so it has time to infuse the oil with plenty of flavour, but with enough heat so it turns pale golden rather than just sitting there uselessly bloating in warm oil. Whatever you do, don’t be impatient and turn up the heat too high because garlic is bitter when burnt, and we use a lot of it in this pasta!

1. Finely slice the garlic, making them equal thickness as best you can so they cook at the same rate.

2. Pasta first – Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil, then add the pasta and cook it per the packet directions minus 1 minute so it’s al dente (just cooked, firm to bite, not soft and mushy). For spaghetti no. 5 (the standard thickness), the packet usually says 12 minutes so cook for 11.

3. Reserve water – Just before draining, scoop out one cup of the pasta cooking water and set aside (we need it to make the sauce). Then drain the pasta in a colander (though if you time it right, you can transfer the pasta with tongs straight into the garlic oil!)

4. Sauté garlic – While the pasta is boiling, heat the oil in a large deep pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté for 2 – 3 minutes until it is light golden. Add the red chilli flakes and cook for 20 to 30 seconds or until the garlic is golden. Do not let the garlic become dark golden or brown, it will become bitter and go all through your pasta!! 😩

5. Pasta and reserved water – Add the pasta, 1/2 cup of the reserved pasta cooking water and the salt.

6. Toss, toss, toss! Using two wooden spatulas, toss the pasta (still on the stove, but turn it up to medium high) for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes until the water pooled in the pan disappears and the strands are shiny and coated in garlic oil.

   What’s happening here is that the starch in the pasta water and on the pasta itself emulsifies with the oil to create a sauce that clings to every strand rather than pooling in the pan. This is the proper Italian way to finish pasta – tossed with the sauce and a splash of pasta cooking water. It’s why I use this technique in virtually all my pasta recipes! 🙂

7. Parsley then serve – Toss through the parsley then immediately divide between bowls. Pasta waits for no one, so serve it up hot and freshly made! Though if at anytime the pasta does go too sticky or cools because everyone is too slow to get to the table, you can revive it easily with an extra slosh of the pasta water and tossing again on the stove.

   Oh, and a shower of parmesan is a must for me. I am very generous with parmesan with Aglio e Olio!

So there you go! That’s how I make Aglio e Olio. I know there’s a gazillion recipes online already and really, does the world need another one? Probably not, but this little corner of the internet we call RecipeTin Eats is a collection of foods I love to eat, and this is one pasta I really love to eat that I used to make frequently during my corporate days.

There’s nothing groundbreaking, nothing I do differently from traditional recipes, but the one thing I do insist on is measuring out the salt properly, to make sure your spaghetti isn’t under seasoned (bland!) or overly salty (inedible and can’t be saved).

Oh! One more thing to mention:

What I do with leftovers – spaghetti fritters!

These are so good, it is almost worth making Aglio e Olio just to make these! I just mix chopped up spaghetti with an egg and cheese (I literally use scissors in the bowl of leftover pasta), then pan fry it until crisp. From 2 cups of spaghetti, 1 egg and 3/4 cup of cheese, you will get 13 to 14 fritters. Add a dipping sauce (Aoili pictured) and a fresh leafy salad and you’ve got yourself a whole extra meal! 🙂

I’ve popped the spaghetti fritters recipe in the recipe card below. I meant to write up a separate post for them but I ran out of time. Sorry! – Nagi x

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Watch how to make it

More simple pastas

Really quick and easy ones that come together in 20 minutes or less!

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Life of Jaffle

We’ve barely started spring but the summer weather arrived on the weekend here in Sydney, with blazing hot 30°C days (86°F). This marks the start of Jaffle’s pool life, which means Tattoos by Jaffle is now officially open for business: