Creamy Tomato Garlic Pasta
This went viral for a reason — it’s stupid easy and embarrassingly delicious. I feel like I should apologise to every complicated pasta recipe I’ve ever made, because this one takes 25 minutes, uses ingredients I always have in the pantry, and my kids would riot if I removed it from our weekly rotation.
Ingredients
- 12 oz pasta 340g; spaghetti, penne, rigatoni, whatever you have. Rigatoni is my favourite because the tubes catch the sauce.
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes 300g; halved
- 6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced yes, six. This is a garlic pasta. Commit.
- ½ cup heavy cream 120ml
- ½ cup freshly grated parmesan 45g
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes Kasia’s non-negotiable addition
- Fresh basil
- Salt and pepper
Method
Cook the Pasta
-
Boil pasta in well-salted water until 1 minute short of al dente. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water before draining. I know saving pasta water feels like an unnecessary step, but I promise: it’s the difference between a sauce that clings and a sauce that slides off. The starch in that water is free emulsifier. Use it.
Blister the Tomatoes
-
While the pasta cooks, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the halved cherry tomatoes, cut-side down. Let them cook without moving for 3-4 minutes until they start to blister, char slightly, and release their juices. This is where the magic happens — the natural sugars caramelise and the tomatoes start breaking down into sauce.
Add the Garlic
-
Reduce heat to medium. Add the sliced garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook for 1 minute, stirring gently. The garlic should be fragrant and just barely golden — NOT brown. Burnt garlic is bitter garlic and bitter garlic ruins everything. If it starts to darken too fast, add the cream immediately to stop the cooking.
Make the Sauce
-
Pour in the heavy cream. Stir to combine, gently pressing some of the tomatoes with the back of a spoon to release more juice. Let it simmer for 2 minutes until slightly thickened. Add the parmesan and stir until melted and incorporated. Season with salt and pepper.
Finish the Pasta
-
Add the drained pasta directly to the sauce. Toss vigorously, adding pasta water a splash at a time until the sauce coats every noodle and is glossy and creamy. The pasta should look like it’s wearing the sauce, not swimming in it. Tear fresh basil over the top and serve immediately with extra parmesan.
Notes
Leftovers keep for 3 days in the fridge. The sauce will thicken as the pasta absorbs it — add a splash of cream or water when reheating on the stovetop. Not great for freezing because cream sauces tend to separate. Best eaten fresh, which has never been a problem in my house because there are never leftovers.
Creamy Tomato Garlic Pasta — 20-Minute Pantry Dinner That Tastes Expensive
This went viral for a reason — it’s stupid easy and embarrassingly delicious. I feel like I should apologise to every complicated pasta recipe I’ve ever made, because this one takes 25 minutes, uses ingredients I always have in the pantry, and my kids would riot if I removed it from our weekly rotation.
Creamy tomato garlic pasta is one of those recipes that sounds too simple to be good. Cherry tomatoes. Garlic. Cream. Parmesan. Pasta. That’s it. But when the tomatoes blister and burst in the pan, releasing their juices into a garlic-infused cream sauce that clings to every noodle — honestly, it punches way above its ingredient list. It’s the kind of dinner that makes you feel like a genius while requiring approximately zero genius-level effort.
I add chilli flakes. Obviously. If you follow Polish Mom at all, you know that I put chilli flakes in everything from pierogi to scrambled eggs. In this pasta, they add a gentle warmth that lifts the whole dish. My kids eat it without complaint because the cream tames the heat. My husband asks for extra flakes because he married into the spice life and there’s no going back.
Why This Recipe Works
Cherry tomatoes are the hero here. When you cook them in hot oil with garlic, they blister, soften, and eventually burst — creating a natural tomato sauce right in the pan. No canned tomatoes needed. No tomato paste. Just fresh tomatoes doing what tomatoes do when you apply heat and patience. The cream melts into this natural sauce, the parmesan adds salt and richness, and the pasta water ties it all together into something silky and cohesive.
This is also a recipe that adapts to what you have. No cherry tomatoes? Use a can of diced tomatoes, drained. No heavy cream? A good splash of whole milk and extra parmesan works. No parmesan? Pecorino, or even cheddar in a pinch (don’t tell the Italians). It’s a forgiving recipe for imperfect pantries, which is basically the Polish Mom ethos.
Ingredients
- • 12 oz (340g) pasta — spaghetti, penne, rigatoni, whatever you have. Rigatoni is my favourite because the tubes catch the sauce.
- • 2 cups (300g) cherry tomatoes — halved
- • 6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced — yes, six. This is a garlic pasta. Commit.
- • ½ cup (120ml) heavy cream
- • ½ cup (45g) freshly grated parmesan
- • 3 tablespoons olive oil
- • ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes — Kasia’s non-negotiable addition
- • Fresh basil
- • Salt and pepper
How to Make It
Cook the Pasta
Boil pasta in well-salted water until 1 minute short of al dente. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water before draining. I know saving pasta water feels like an unnecessary step, but I promise: it’s the difference between a sauce that clings and a sauce that slides off. The starch in that water is free emulsifier. Use it.
Blister the Tomatoes
While the pasta cooks, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the halved cherry tomatoes, cut-side down. Let them cook without moving for 3-4 minutes until they start to blister, char slightly, and release their juices. This is where the magic happens — the natural sugars caramelise and the tomatoes start breaking down into sauce.
Add the Garlic
Reduce heat to medium. Add the sliced garlic and red pepper flakes. Cook for 1 minute, stirring gently. The garlic should be fragrant and just barely golden — NOT brown. Burnt garlic is bitter garlic and bitter garlic ruins everything. If it starts to darken too fast, add the cream immediately to stop the cooking.
Make the Sauce
Pour in the heavy cream. Stir to combine, gently pressing some of the tomatoes with the back of a spoon to release more juice. Let it simmer for 2 minutes until slightly thickened. Add the parmesan and stir until melted and incorporated. Season with salt and pepper.
Finish the Pasta
Add the drained pasta directly to the sauce. Toss vigorously, adding pasta water a splash at a time until the sauce coats every noodle and is glossy and creamy. The pasta should look like it’s wearing the sauce, not swimming in it. Tear fresh basil over the top and serve immediately with extra parmesan.
Tips
💡 Pro Tips
✓ Don’t burn the garlic. I’ve said it, I’ll say it again. Six cloves of garlic is a lot of garlic, and a lot of burnt garlic is a lot of bitterness. Medium heat, 1 minute maximum, constant attention.
✓ Save your pasta water. This is the #1 tip for any cream-based pasta. The starchy water helps the sauce emulsify and cling. Without it, you get a greasy sauce that puddles at the bottom of the bowl.
✓ Use fresh parmesan. Pre-grated parmesan from a shaker has anti-caking agents that prevent it from melting smoothly. Grate it yourself from a block. The difference is enormous and takes 30 seconds.
✓ Finish the pasta in the sauce. Don’t just dump sauce on top of drained pasta. Add the pasta to the pan and toss it with the sauce for a minute. This lets the pasta absorb flavour and the starch bonds with the sauce.
Variations
• With chicken: Add sliced, seared chicken breast. Cook the chicken first, set it aside, then make the sauce in the same pan.
• With spinach: A handful of baby spinach stirred into the finished sauce adds colour and iron. It wilts in seconds.
• With sausage: Brown some crumbled Italian sausage (or kielbasa — we’re Polish Mom after all) before making the sauce. The pork fat becomes part of the sauce base.
• Baked version: Toss everything together, transfer to a baking dish, top with mozzarella, and bake at 190°C / 375°F for 15 minutes. Basically a deconstructed baked ziti.
How to Store
Leftovers keep for 3 days in the fridge. The sauce will thicken as the pasta absorbs it — add a splash of cream or water when reheating on the stovetop. Not great for freezing because cream sauces tend to separate. Best eaten fresh, which has never been a problem in my house because there are never leftovers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use regular tomatoes instead of cherry?
Yes — dice them and cook the same way. Cherry tomatoes are sweeter and blister better, but regular tomatoes work in a pinch. Add a pinch of sugar to compensate for the lower sweetness.
Is six cloves of garlic too much?
No. Next question. (Seriously — the cream mellows the garlic significantly. Six cloves in the pan becomes gentle garlic flavour on the plate, not vampire repellent. Trust the process.)
Can I make this dairy-free?
Use coconut cream instead of heavy cream and nutritional yeast instead of parmesan. The flavour will be different but still delicious — more of a tomato-garlic pasta with richness than a cheesy cream pasta.
My pantry-raid story
This recipe was born out of desperation. It was 6pm, I hadn’t planned dinner, and the pantry had cherry tomatoes that were getting soft, half a block of parmesan, and a head of garlic. The fridge had cream. I figured I’d throw it all together with pasta and see what happened. What happened was that my husband ate two full plates and my kids asked if we could have it again tomorrow. We did. And the day after that. It became a permanent fixture on our weekly menu within a week, and three years later it’s still there. The best recipes aren’t planned — they’re panicked into existence.