Enjoy this roasted red pepper pasta as a cozy, veggie-packed comfort food dinner idea! We roast peppers and carrots in the oven for delicious sweetness and blend up a flavorful tomato free pasta sauce in all easy recipe steps.
⭐ Recipe Highlights
🍝 Recipe: Red Pepper Pasta
🥕 Secret ingredient: Roasted carrots!
🌿 Main ingredients: Red bell peppers, carrots, onion, thyme, heavy cream, pasta.
💭 Suitable for: Vegetarian diet, low histamine diet (dependent on individual tolerances), and those who cannot tolerate tomatoes or just aren't a fan.
🍽 Difficulty level: Very easy!
⏲️ Cook time: 45 minutes
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One of my little missions in life is to make tomato free pasta sauces, often with roasted red peppers, such as my red pepper pesto pasta and red pepper ricotta pasta. This red pepper pasta joins the collection and has fast become a meal on repeat in my home!
We roast the peppers for sweetness, but add in the special ingredient of roasted carrots too. On a recipe test I used less carrot, but wasn't as keen on the taste or texture. Adding the carrots made all the difference and gives us a thicker, more flavorful pasta sauce!
🌶 Ingredients
All the ingredients and their quantities are set out in the recipe card below.
Some notes on a few of them:
- Peppers - we want to use red bell peppers as they have more sweetness than yellow or green peppers. Make sure to use sweet bell peppers not hot ones!
- Carrots - the secret ingredient that not only gives some hidden veggies (perfect if it's for kids!), but also brings more sweetness and thickens the sauce. Have a peek at my carrot pasta sauce recipe for another meal time!
- Heavy cream - for my UK readers, you want to use double cream not single cream, as the latter would likely split.
- Sweet paprika - this not only gives us a lovely red color to the sauce, but also a little hint of spice (don't worry, it's not too spicy!).
- Thyme - I recommend to use fresh thyme if possible, but if using dried thyme, reduce the quantity to about a third as it's more pungent and cook with the onion.
📖 Swaps and Variations
Swap heavy cream for non-dairy milk. I have recipe tested this with non-dairy milk rather than heavy cream for a vegan red pepper pasta. It was good! The cream will make it creamier and a little richer.
🔪 How to Make Red Pepper Pasta
Making a roasted red pepper pasta sauce is very easy to do, uses simple ingredients and has just a little hands-on prep time. All you need is a blender and parchment paper to line your baking sheet.
All the instructions are in the recipe card below, but these step by step photos should help guide you.
Step 1: Roast bell peppers
Prep the red peppers by removing the stalk, white membrane and seeds, and dicing into 3-4 pieces. Peel and roughly dice the carrots into rounds. Place on a lined baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil (image 1). Roast the veggies in the oven.
Add the roasted peppers to a bag or bowl covered with a plate for 5-10 minutes. Once cool enough to handle, peel the skins off the peppers.
Step 2: Cook onion and garlic
Drizzle olive oil in your skillet and cook diced onion until softened, add garlic and sweet paprika, and cook for another minute or so (image 2).
Cook the pasta according to package instructions in salted water. Reserve half a cup of the pasta water.
Step 3: Blend the pepper sauce
Add the roasted peppers, roasted carrots, onion mix and fresh thyme to a blender. Blend to a thick sauce-like consistency (image 3).
Step 4: Make the creamy pepper pasta!
Pour the pepper sauce into your skillet and tip in the pasta. Pour in the heavy cream, stir well, then add some of the reserved pasta water, a tablespoon at a time, so the sauce coats the pasta. Add more pasta water to get the sauce consistency you like (image 4). Season with salt and black pepper, if using, to serve.
💭 Recipe Tips and Notes
- Make sure to use sweet bell peppers not hot ones!
- Use the reserved starchy pasta water to help get a creamier sauce that coats the pasta.
- There are lots of pasta options, such as fusilli or penne, that will work well for this red pepper pasta recipe. You can also use an alternative pasta such as brown rice or quinoa pasta if you prefer.
📋 Frequently Asked Questions
I recommend to use red bell peppers for their sweetness. Green peppers have less sweetness.
You can use a jar of roasted peppers, if that's suitable for you. I do think roasting the peppers yourself gives a more flavorful sauce though!
You can freeze the pasta, for up to three months, and I've done this a few times. It is better made fresh, in my opinion, but will still be good. I suggest to add a little water when reheating to thin the sauce.
🍝 More Pasta Dishes
Find so many pasta dinner ideas here, including my ricotta pesto pasta and pumpkin pasta sauce without cream, as well as these recent recipes:
I'm always in the kitchen, so come join me on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest to be the first to hear of new recipes! And I love to hear from you, so please do leave a star rating ⭐⭐⭐ and comment if you've tried the recipe!
📖 Recipe
Roasted Red Pepper Pasta
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1.5 tablespoon olive oil divided
- 3 red bell peppers stem, seeds and membranes removed
- 2 carrots peeled, roughly diced
- ½ onion diced
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
- ½ teaspoon sweet paprika
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- 8 oz pasta penne, fusilli or bow-tie
- pinch salt
- pinch black pepper optional
- basil leaves to garnish
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 390F / 200C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Slice the peppers into 2-3 large pieces, removing the stalk, seeds and white membrane. Peel and roughly chop the carrots. Add to the baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Roast the peppers and carrots for 30 minutes.
- Once roasted, add the peppers to a bowl and cover with a plate for 5-10 minutes. Peel the skins from the peppers once they are cool enough to handle.
- While the peppers are roasting, cook the pasta to package instructions in salted water. Reserve about half a cup of the pasta water. Drain the pasta.
- Drizzle olive oil in a skillet and cook the diced onion for 4-5 minutes, then add the minced garlic and sweet paprika and cook for a further minute.
- Add the roasted peppers, carrots, onion mix and fresh thyme leaves to a blender and blend to a sauce-like consistency.
- Pour the sauce into the skillet, and tip in the cooked pasta. Pour in the heavy cream and a couple of tablespoons of the reserved pasta water into the skillet, and stir well, adding more of the water to thicken the sauce so it coats the pasta as needed. Season with salt and black pepper, if using. Spoon into your pasta bowls and garnish with fresh basil leaves.
Notes
- For my UK readers, you will want to use double cream not single cream (as the latter could split).
- For dairy free, you can swap the cream for a non-dairy milk. I've tried this on a recipe test and it worked well, although the sauce was a little thinner. Still good though!
- Nutritional information is auto-generated and should be understood to be an estimate.
- white onion scores 0, while other types score higher.
- garlic, which scores 1.
- black pepper, which scores 2.
- pasta (wheat), which scores 1. Other types of pasta such as brown rice or quinoa pasta can be used.
- cream scores 0, but this is for cream without additives.
Tina says
This was a great alternative to regular pasta sauce. I added diced cooked chicken to the pasta and sauce, and it made for a balanced meal of protein, carbohydrates and veggies.Thanks for your recipes!! they make navigating eating low-histamine so much easier and tastier!
Claire says
So lovely to heat that you enjoyed it Tina! Hope you find lots of recipe insp on the site you like, and thank you for taking the time to comment 🙂