Pasta with raw tomato Sicilian style or Sicilian “pasta alla crudaiola”, with salted ricotta, a recipe that is part of Sicilian cuisine and grandma’s recipes.

Have you ever thought of making pasta and dressing it with fresh, uncooked tomato? For us Sicilians, pasta alla trapanese, different from pasta with pesto alla trapanese, is a summer must. It is a very simple and quick first course prepared by dressing the chosen pasta shape with chopped tomatoes left to marinate with garlic, oil and basil. Pasta with raw tomato is an easy and very humble summer first course, but it contains all the fragrances and flavors of the Mediterranean. I love making it with Pachino or Piccadilly cherry tomatoes, red and sweet. The Sicilian pasta alla crudaiola with cherry tomatoes is a dish from my childhood; my grandmother or mother often prepared it when we returned from the sea. Once plated it was generously sprinkled with salted ricotta and was ready to be enjoyed. Want to make it too? Follow me in the kitchen — you’ll see, it’s really delicious. If you’re looking for fun summer ideas, take a look at our collection of quick summer recipes and quick summer pastas!

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Difficulty: Very difficult
Cost: Very inexpensive
Rest time: 30 Minutes
Preparation time: 10 Minutes
Portions: 5
Cooking methods: Stovetop
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: Spring, Summer and Autumn

Ingredients

18 oz pasta
19 oz cherry tomatoes (sweet and red)
to taste extra virgin olive oil
1 pinch garlic powder (or one clove of fresh garlic)
6 leaves basil (fresh)
to taste salt
to taste salted ricotta
dried oregano (optional)

Tools

1 Pot
1 Bowl
1 Cutting board

Steps

Rinse the cherry tomatoes and chop them finely with a knife, almost to a mince. Put them in a bowl and add salt, extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of dehydrated garlic, chopped basil and dried oregano, only if desired. If you don’t want to use dehydrated garlic, halve a clove of fresh garlic and add it to the other ingredients. I also add a pinch of dried oregano; it’s not part of the original recipe but it goes very well. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator to marinate for 30 minutes.
Cook the pasta in lightly salted water, drain it al dente and add the prepared dressing and a handful of salted ricotta. Mix and serve immediately.
If you want to prepare a cold pasta salad, after draining the pasta rinse it under running water to stop the cooking and dress it. Place it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes (or for the necessary time and no more than 12 hours) and serve. In this case use short fresh pasta, which holds its cooking and texture well.