More Pasta Salad

Pasta is my favorite comfort food. I will take it in any form. Pasta salad is always a good form to go with!

Chef John's BLT Pasta

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 pound bacon, cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons lemon zest
2/3 cup creme fraiche
2 cups ditalini pasta
2 cups halved cherry tomatoes
4 cups baby arugula, coarsely chopped
Salt and ground black pepper, to taste
1 pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste
1 tablespoon freshly shredded Parmesan cheese, or to taste (optional)

Directions:

Pour olive oil into a heavy skillet over medium heat, add bacon, and cook until almost crisp, 5 to 8 minutes. Turn off heat. Hold a paper towel with tongs and mop up excess bacon grease with the paper towel, leave about 2 teaspoons bacon grease in the skillet.

Stir minced garlic and lemon zest into bacon in the skillet and let cook in residual heat until fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir creme fraiche into bacon mixture.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and stir in 2 cups of ditalini. Cook till tender, about 8 minutes. Drain and add pasta to the skillet. Stir pasta thoroughly into bacon and creme fraiche mixture.

Return skillet to medium heat. Add tomatoes; cook and stir until slightly softened, about 1 minute. Mix in arugula, stirring until wilted, about 30 seconds, and turn off heat.

Season with salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. Stir again and garnish with Parmesan cheese.

Source: Allrecipes.com, submitted by Chef John. You can find it here.

Notes: We didn't use ditalini pasta. We used penne. This was really good. A great summery side dish.