Fregola, a tiny toasted pasta from Sardinia, is the perfect shape for catching every bit of Molly Baz’s vibrant spicy green sauce. Packed with spinach, dill, garlic and serrano chilies, Baz’s punchy pasta sauce delivers major flavour with surprisingly little effort. If you can’t find fregola, pearl couscous works beautifully too.
Served cold or at room temperature with salty yogurt and a squeeze of lemon, it’s the kind of flexible recipe that feels right for everything from long weekend lunches and cottage dinners to meal prep for the week ahead.
“When I know I need to get vegetables into my body, consuming an entire clamshell of fresh spinach is the easiest way to do it,” Baz writes. “Mixing bouncy fregola with a blender full of spicy green sauce is a surefire way to meet your daily quota.”
Spicy Green Fregola
Ingredients
- 2½ cups fregola or pearl couscous
Spicy Green Sauce
- 1 large bunch dill coarsely chopped
- 2 serrano chilies or 1 jalapeno coarsely chopped
- 5 oz pkg baby spinach
- 1 clove garlic
- big pinch kosher salt
- ⅔ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salty Yog
- ⅔ cup plain whole-milk yogurt not Greek
- ¼ tsp kosher salt approx
- 1 lemon juiced
- sesame seeds for sprinkling
- freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Bring large pot of salted water to a boil. Stir in fregola and cook until al dente following package directions, tasting as you go. Drain; rinse under cold water until cool. Transfer to large bowl.
Spicy Green Sauce
- In blender or food processor, add dill, chilies, baby spinach, garlic and salt. Add olive oil, then blend on high until smooth, 1 minute. Taste, adding more salt if needed.
- Pour spicy green sauce over fregola. Add lemon juice, stirring well to coat. Taste and adjust seasoning – does it need more salt? More lemon?
Salty Yog
- In small bowl, stir together yogurt and salt. It should taste salted but not overly salty! You decide!
- Make a well in centre of fregola mixture and spoon salty yog into well. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and a crack or two of black pepper and serve!
