Looking for an easy meal to make on a weeknight when you don’t have many ingredients on hand? I came up with this Quick Pasta with Peas and Feta Cheese recipe awhile back, and made it again recently with good results.
Inspiration for Quick Pasta with Peas and Feta
I’m usually looking for something easy to whip up on Friday nights, at the end of a long work week. That often means just going for an old standby, like a quick tortellini dish. But sometimes I take my inspiration for what is still in the fridge in advance of our Saturday excursion to Whole Foods.
I’d used up most of what I’d bought last week. I spied one lonely onion in the produce drawer, and some leftover feta cheese. Peas in freezer, always good with pasta, and I had the makings of a new recipe: Pasta with Peas and Feta Cheese.
Notes from our Recipe Remake
We stayed pretty close to the original instructions during our recent remaking of this Pasta with Peas and Feta Cheese recipe. We used elbow macaroni, but you could easy use another short pasta shape like shells. We are dealing with a nut allergy in our house now, so we swapped toasted pumpkin seeds in place of the walnuts. Either of those options is a good way to add a tasty little crunch.
You can easily get this pasta with peas and feta cheese dish on the table for dinner in under 20 minutes. That makes it a great option for a busy weeknight!
Wine Pairing for Pasta with Peas and Feta Cheese
I went all out with the “use what’s available theme” when I first made this pasta with peas and feta cheese recipe. I served it with some leftover Petit Verdot, a big red wine more typically used as a blending grape. Not ideal but it was OK. I noted that a white might work better, or a medium bodied red.
With the earlier tasting notes in mind, during our pasta with peas and feta remake I opened a bottle of 2015 Viognier de Flaugergues ($13, 13.5% ABV), a Pays D’Oc from the Languedoc region of France. This wine, made from 100% Viognier grapes, has a piney nose and lemon fruit. A pretty good pairing for the pasta with peas and feta, definitely an improvement on Petit Verdot. If you happen to have a Greek wine available, that might be a good pairing to go with the feta cheese in the dish. Let us know if you find a good pairing.
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Quick Pasta with Peas and Feta Cheese
Frozen peas cooked with onions and garlic make for a quick, flavorful pasta meal, tossed with feta cheese.
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 15 mins
- Total Time: 20 mins
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Main
- Cuisine: Mediterranean
Ingredients
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- ⅓ cup water
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 10 ozs short pasta such as elbows, orecchiette or shells
- ¼ cup toasted pumpkin seeds or walnuts
- ½ cup feta cheese
- ½ tsp herbes de provence
- salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- Boil a pot of water and begin cooking pasta according to package instructions.
- In a large skillet, sauté onion in 2 tablespoons of olive oil until softened, about 5 minutes. Add garlic,sauté another minute or two.
- Add peas, water, and herbes de provence. Cover pan and simmer for about 10 minutes.
- Drain the pasta when cooked. Toss the pasta with the pea mixture. Stir in the feta cheese, and salt and pepper to taste.
- Plate the pasta, and top with a sprinkling of pumpkin seeds or walnuts. Enjoy!
Joe
Yikes – a Petit Verdot – that’s a monster! I have only had one pure PV in my life – tannic beast, but I have one more bottle to see how it progresses.
David
This one actually wasn’t too overbearing, tannins were fairly soft. First time that I recall having the varietal straight up.
JDF
Sometimes having those pure varietals can be adventurous – you quickly realize why they’re unique characters are mostly used for blends.
It so happens that I went down that alley this week with a Cab Franc, a French bottle out of S’Aumor-Champigny. Always a fan of Cab Franc, I cradled the bottle on my ride out of Boston, and gently poured a glass after arriving home.
I hadn’t had a Cab Franc in a while, and upon sipping the wine, I was somewhat taken aback – this isn’t as enjoyable as I wanted it to be! But the austere character of this wine must be paired with the right food, and then it will be as good as I wanted to remember it as? Right? Maybe that was true, but it was like a love affair gone bad, the kind you don’t want to end, but you know it’s inevitable.
But, alas, the next evening my Cab Franc was there, waiting, as if to say, “give me another chance.” Well, as often a love story goes, after airing out some, the gentleness returned, the sourness faded, and the relationship was once again on solid ground.
And sometimes advice or insight gained from a friend can help too – this lone varietal, and perhaps others such as the PV, could use a little decanting to stretch out before performing to its fullest!
JDF
And I forgot to mention, the pasta & peas with the PV sounds great – exemplary innovation David!
One new combo I recently happened on, after a tasting (Wine Country – Winchester, MA) and a pairing at No. 9 Park in Boston, was a Rose with any soft tasting (i.e., creamy, whiter meats) dish of the garlic venue. A nice Rose could have been a good match with the pasta dish. I had a scallop dish with a Spanish Rose, which was a super pairing.
I was never much into Rose, but find a good one, and with the right food and atmosphere (i.e., sunny, warmer days), I think you’ll find you’ve discovered a great new way to enjoy yourself, if you haven’t already (maybe I’m just late to the game!?).
David
I could see a rose working here, have also had a good 1 @ No. 9…maybe the same one? I think the one I had was from Sardinia.