I love August and all it’s fresh vegetables. Put the summer harvest to good use in this easy, delicious Summer Vegetable Pasta.

I think (fingers crossed) that our summer heat wave may be breaking this week. We’ve had the first thunder and rain storms, with more in the forecast over the next week or so and the temperatures have finally dropped from the triple digits. This summer really has been a scorcher!

With the slightly cooler temperatures and evening rainstorms, I finally feel like I can use the oven again. And just in time too because it wouldn’t be summer without fresh roasted corn and tomatoes on my dinner table. This simple pasta is one of my favorite ways to use up the season’s fresh vegetables.

Summer Vegetable Pasta

This Summer Vegetable Pasta is such a simple recipe, but that’s exactly what makes it delicious. Roasting the tomatoes and corn in the oven brings out the sweetness and peak of summer flavor, which means you don’t need much else to turn a pot of pasta noodles into something special. A hint of lemon, black pepper, good Parmesan, and some thyme. But mostly, it’s all about the summer veggies.

Start to finish, this will take you about 35 to 45 minutes to get it on the table, but most of that is down time while the veggies roast and the noodles boil. It’s an easy one and I speak only the truth when I say we’ve been eating some version of this three or more times a week recently. It evolved from the Penne with Roasted Tomatoes and Spinach recipe in Dinner: A Playbook (which I raved about here and can’t recommend highly enough).

The weird thing is that my kids normally boohoo about eating cooked spinach (raw is fine, in a smoothie is best, but cooked can incite a dinner table riot). But for some odd reason, they eat this Summer Vegetable Pasta with no complaint. Go figure.

Summer Vegetable Pasta

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

40 mins

Serves: 6

Ingredients

1 pint grape tomatoes, or 2 to 3 cups
¼ of a large onion, coarsely chopped
2 ears sweet yellow corn on the cob
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
leaves from 2 sprigs fresh thyme
salt and pepper
1 lb penne pasta (we also like it with pasta shells)
16 ounces fresh baby spinach, or about 4 big handfuls (which is how I measure from the garden)
2 tablespoons butter
1 garlic clove, minced
grated zest of one lemon
juice from half a lemon
½ cup freshly grated Parmesan, plus more for serving

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a large, rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the tomatoes, onions, corn, and thyme on the prepared baking sheet. Drizzle 2 tablespoons olive oil over the veggies, then toss gently until evenly coated. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the tomatoes look like the ones pictured above.
Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to the package instructions. During the last minute of cooking, add the spinach to the boiling pasta. Drain the pasta and spinach together, reserving ¼ cup of the pasta water.
Return the emptied pasta pot to the stove and heat the butter and remaining olive oil. Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute then remove from heat. Return the pasta and spinach to the pot.
Remove the roasted veggies from the oven. Carefully cut the corn off the cob. Add the corn, tomatoes, and onion tot he pasta. Stir in the lemon zest, juice, and Parmesan. Add reserved pasta water as needed to keep the pasta moist and smooth (I find that I only need a tablespoon most of the time). Taste and adjust salt and pepper. Serve with additional Parmesan.