We call it “broccoli pasta.” It’s pretty much penne with broccoil, olive oil, green bell peppers (and a few other things).

A fairly healthy dinner with good amounts of veggies, and a nice amount of olive oil and pasta to fill it out. All of our kids love it. It makes great leftovers.

If you prefer to make it vegan, you can skip the Parmesan.

Ingredients to make ~8 servings:

• Box of penne (1lb)
• Bag of broccoli (~18-20oz)
• 2 green bell peppers
• A decent handful of spinach
• Lots of garlic
• Half yellow onion
• Olive oil
• The highest quality Parmesan cheese you can get
• Salt, pepper, garlic powder

Prep time: 10 minutes. Cook time: 20 minutes.

Prep

• Fill pot with water for boiling penne.
• Get large pan, put some olive oil.
• Dice the half onion and put into pan.
• Cut broccoli into somewhat large pieces. We don’t want them too small or else they’ll cook up too fast / lose their texture.
• Chop bell peppers into medium squares. Not too big, not too small.

Cook

Once prepped, the entire meal takes as long to cook as it takes for water to heat and cook the pasta.

1. Turn on high heat for the pot of water to begin heating.
2. Turn on medium heat for the pan to begin cooking the onion.
3. Cook the onion for a couple of minutes or until it’s starting to turn color.
4. Add more oil to the pan and put in the broccoli and bell pepper. Mix well, give it some more oil, mix well. Season with salt, pepper. Continue to stir every couple minutes to cook everything evenly.
5. Chop the garlic.
6. When the pot of water begins boiling, add the penne.
7. At some point the pasta will be done cooking. Drain and put back into pot.
8. Keep an eye on the veggies cooking. At some point the broccoli will start to have little bits of brown from cooking. Make sure to put the garlic in a few minutes before the broccoli is finished. You can sample the broccoli to check for desired doneness. I like a little crunch to it.
9. Once the broccoli is to your liking, we are ready to wrap it up.
10. Put the heat on very low. Put a handful of spinach in the pan, sprinkle spinach with olive oil, season generously with salt, pepper, and a little garlic power. Quickly mix.
11. Put penne in the pan, sprinkle with olive oil, season generously with salt, pepper, and a little garlic power. Mix well, ensuring that the spinach gets incorporated well. Everything should have a bit of a coat of olive oil on it – olive oil is an emphasis in this recipe.
12. Dust with Parmesan cheese, mix, and do a topping of Parmesan. Let everything sit for a minutes.
13. Serve!

Extra Thoughts

We like to add a little heat. Crushed red pepper works well, add while the veggies are cooking. Or if you have a good jalapeno, chop and cook with veggies.

We put *almost* all penne into the pan, but not all. Some of the cooked penne we leave out – otherwise the pasta-to-veggies ratio is higher than we like.

Pictures

Adding spinach:

Mixing spinach:

Adding pasta:

Finished product: