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Linguine with Spinach and Sun-Dried Tomato Cream Sauce takes just 30 minutes to make! This simple Italian pasta is a great choice for a weeknight dinner! Linguine is generously coated in a comforting creamy sauce made with garlic and Parmesan cheese.
This delicious linguine has been inspired by the sun-dried tomato pasta I made a while back. This recipe features the best homemade pasta sauce you'll ever try! It's full of flavor and color! The creamy linguine Alfredo sauce is made with garlic, paprika, cream, and shredded Parmesan cheese.
This linguine recipe makes a great meatless dinner. If you crave some protein, you can easily add grilled chicken or cooked shrimp to the dish. Just like in this simple chicken pasta or this shrimp pasta.
Linguine with creamy alfredo sauce
- Creamy comfort food. In this recipe, linguine is smothered in a simple homemade alfredo sauce made with cream, garlic, and Parmesan cheese. The silky sauce coats the linguine to produce one of the most comforting and decadent pasta dishes you'll ever try! Sun-dried tomatoes and spinach add so much flavor to the creamy deliciousness!
- 30-minute recipe. This beautiful pasta dish takes only 30 minutes to make.
- Only 9 ingredients. Simple recipes are the best! This recipe uses basic ingredients that you can easily buy in any grocery store.
- Beautiful presentation. This easy pasta makes a beautiful and colorful presentation. Creamy alfredo sauce has a light pink color thanks to sun-dried tomatoes and paprika. Spinach also adds vibrancy to the linguine!
What is linguine?
- Linguine is a long, thin, ribbon-style pasta of Italian origin. It's similar to fettuccine and spaghetti. Linguine is like flattened spaghetti and not as wide as fettuccine.
- Linguine originated in Genoa of Liguria region, Italy.
- Linguine is usually served with seafood or with pesto sauce. Other common dishes made with linguine include puttanesca sauce, linguine carbonara, and linguine with clams.
- Linguine is made with durum wheat semolina.
Fun fact: Did you know that "linguine" in Italian means "little tongues"? "Linguina" means "little tongue" in Italian, and "linguine" is plural of "linguina". The root of the word is "lingua" (Latin) which means tongue.
Substitutions
This pasta dish is very flexible, and you can use all kinds of different ingredients:
- Don't have linguine? Use spaghetti or fettuccine pasta.
- What can you use to replace Parmesan? Use Mozzarella cheese, Pecorino Romano, or Asiago cheese.
- Don't have spinach? Use Swiss chard, arugula, or kale.
Linguine vs. fettuccine
- Both linguine and fettuccine are ribbon style, long strand pasta. Fettuccine is a flat thick pasta. Fettuccine is noticeably wider than linguine. Linguine is more like flattened spaghetti.
- The most common dish made with fettuccine is fettuccine alfredo. Linguine is usually served with seafood, pesto, carbonara sauce, or with clams.
Linguine vs. spaghetti
- Both linguine and spaghetti are ribbon-style long-strand pasta. They are very similar in shape. Linguine is like a flatter version of spaghetti.
- Spaghetti is usually served with tomato sauce or meat. Linguine is traditionally served with seafood or pesto.
Sauces that go well with linguine
- White cream pasta sauce. Linguine tastes amazing when coated in the white cheese Italian pasta sauce. Make simple white cream pasta sauce for linguine or any other pasta!
- Sun-dried tomato cream sauce. Sun-dried tomatoes and basil in a homemade creamy Mozzarella sauce will make a perfect sauce for linguine. This sun-dried tomato pasta recipe shows you how to make it.
- Alfredo sauce. Make linguine alfredo by following this recipe for chicken broccoli alfredo. You can even add chicken and broccoli, or keep them out of the recipe and just follow the steps for the alfredo sauce.
Gluten-free friendly recipe
- You can easily make this recipe gluten free by using gluten free linguine.
What to serve with linguine
- Bread. Serve Baguette or Italian garlic bread.
- Fresh salad. Make this tomato cucumber avocado salad or tomato mozzarella salad.
- Spinach salad. Because this linguine has spinach, it would be a great combination to serve it with a basic spinach salad. Just toss together some spinach leaves with shredded Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Or, if you want something more sophisticated, try this spinach salad with prosciutto and pears. Or, make a spinach salad with beets.
How to cook linguine al dente
- To cook pasta al dente, cook linguine in salted boiling water about 2 minutes less than indicated on the package instructions. I cooked linguine for about 9 minutes in boiling water.
Cooking Tips
- Reserve some pasta water. Use it to thin out the cream sauce if it gets too thick.
- Make sure to season the creamy linguine sauce with just the right amount of salt. That means you might have to add more salt than indicated in the recipe. Salt really helps to bring out all the flavors!
How to prepare the sauce for linguine - step-by-step
1) Cook chopped sun-dried tomatoes and minced garlic with olive oil on medium heat, for about 30 seconds.
2) Add 1 cup of half-and-half, paprika, and ¼ teaspoon of salt. Bring to boil and reduce to simmer.
3) Add shredded Parmesan cheese. Stir for a couple of minutes until the cheese melts.
4) Add spinach.
5) Keep stirring on medium heat until the spinach wilts, about 1 minute.
6) Add cooked and drained linguine to the sauce. Stir well. Taste the linguine, and season with more salt, if needed.
Other pasta recipes
Below are other meatless pasta sauce recipes that will go great with linguine. What's beautiful about these recipes is that you can easily add protein. Add grilled chicken, pan-seared scallops or seared shrimp.
- Creamy Spinach Mushroom Pasta with Caramelized Onions
- Sun-Dried Tomato Mushroom Pasta
- Four Cheese Garlic White Cream Pasta Sauce
Linguine with spinach and sun-dried tomato cream sauce
Ingredients
- 8 oz linguine
- ⅓ cup sun-dried tomatoes , chopped
- 3 cloves garlic , minced
- 1 cup half-and-half
- 1 cup Parmesan cheese , shredded
- ¼ teaspoon paprika
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 6 oz spinach
- 5 basil leaves fresh, finely chopped
Instructions
- Cook linguine according to package instructions. Drain.
- Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet on medium heat.
- Add chopped sun-dried tomatoes and minced garlic. Cook on medium heat for about 30 seconds, constantly stirring.
- Add 1 cup of half-and-half, paprika, and ¼ teaspoon of salt. Bring to boil and reduce to simmer.
- Add ½ cup of shredded Parmesan cheese (half of what the recipe calls for). Stir for about 30 seconds or longer until the cheese melts. If the sauce is too thin, gradually add more cheese. Keep stirring around all of the skillet for a couple of minutes.
- Note: if the sauce gets too thick, add more half-and-half.
- Add spinach. Keep stirring on medium heat until the spinach wilts, about 1 minute.
- Add cooked and drained linguine to the sauce. Stir well.
- Taste the linguine and add more salt, if needed. Top with finely chopped fresh basil leaves.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer:
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
This came out amazing! I did double it and make a few minor changes. We grilled bnls/sknls chicken breast in a cast iron skillet for a good crisp outside. Salt and pepper on each side, tiny amount of coconut oil. Removed chicken to a plate to keep warm, added half a diced onion to the pan, stirred about 1min, deglazed pan with 1/3c white wine. The onions pick up so much flavor with this step and get nice and tender for those who don’t like crisp onions in pasta. Then followed the rest of the recipe. We used half parm, half Asiago cheese and added a pinch of crushed red pepper. Diced the chicken to top this and it was aaaaamazing!!!! Definitely a family favorite 🙂
Thank you, Amanda, for such a detailed comment and for sharing the changes you made. Your additions sound delicious: grilled chicken, onion, white wine.
This is definitely a keeper recipe! We made it with bow tie pasta and added sliced and browned Polska kielbasa sausage to the sauce. It was super yummy. We also paired it with a spring mix salad with a lemon vinaigrette on the side.
So glad you enjoyed this pasta, Suzanne! Adding the kielbasa sausage sounds so good!
Do you really need 6 oz of spinach? That’s over a bag full of spinach.
The spinach does reduce a lot when cooked. You could reduce the amount of spinach in half, if you like, and then see if you need to add more.
The idea seems awesome but the recipe didn’t go over too well. With the salad, we left the pesto basil on the side in case someone didn’t want it. i mixed it in (the lemon was put throughout the salad) and the basil pesto took away from the taste of the salad. During my second helping, I stayed away from the pesto. Regarding the main dish, I made it to the recipe exactly but the half-and-half hardened up once i took the flame off medium-high. So I had to run over to the grocery store to get heavy whipping cream. The pasta came out delicious as the recipe says but with heavy whipping cream!
Thank you for sharing your feedback! If the sauce thickened, you could thin it out by adding more half-and-half or add reserved pasta water.
Do you use regular sun dried tomatoes (those in oil) or the bagged ones? (Dry) 🙂
This isn’t my recipe but since you’re not getting an answer I’ll try. I make a few different pasta’s with sun dried tomatoes and always use the ones that come in a jar with olive oil.
I used sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil from a glass jar.
I used sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil (in a glass jar).
Wow I love it my family love it your recipe is awesome I’m vegetarian this perfect for me & my families Juli
Can the sauce be made ahead?
I prefer not to make this kind of creamy sauce in advance. It could lose its texture when reheating.
Tried this recipe today & it was absolutely delicious,will definitely make it again. It was very easy to make & quick,made my weekday dinner easy!
So glad you tried this recipe and enjoyed it! Thank you for your comment!
WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE REMAINING 1/2 CUP CHEESE? I'M MAKING THIS TONIGHT. YUM
If the sauce is too thin, you can add the remaining cheese.
Absolutely delicious and it took 30 minutes start to finish!
I am very happy to hear that, Pam! 🙂
Loved it! Will make again. Added prawns and scallops at the end to make it extra special. Did add a bit more sundried tomatoes than called for (and capers) just for extra zest. Excellent!
So glad you enjoyed this recipe! Prawns and scallops sound delicious with this pasta!
This was ok. Underwhelmed by the flavors and the sauce separated for me as well. By the time I fixed the sauce to make it smoothe again this was way too time consuming. Will not be making again.
simple and super tasty pasta recipe!
Thank you! I am very happy to hear that! 🙂
My husband and I loved this recipe!! The sauce was so delicious. It looked like it was coming out to be a perfectly smooth sauce but then the oil and cheese separated and it became a very clumpy sauce. It tasted great nonetheless but I will need to try the recipe out again to figure out how to keep the sauce smooth. Thank you for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed this recipe! Not sure why the sauce would become clumpy after being smooth. Maybe the sauce got too thick? If that's the case, thin it out with some half-and-half, while the sauce simmers.
This happened to me as well... I ended up balancing mine out with a few tablespoons of cream cheese for texture and then chicken broth to thin it out versus more half and half.
Good idea to use chicken broth to thin out the sauce. If the sauce gets clumpy, make sure the sauce simmers (boils on low) while you add the cheese and stir the cheese in - that should prevent the clumping.
Oh wow, the flavors in this dish are amazing! The texture of mine did not turn out well after the addition of the fresh spinach. The liquid/water from the wilted spinach in the cream-based sauce resulted in separation - spinach/cheese clumping together in a watery base. I thought the sauce was fantastic before adding the spinach, so I'll probably make it that way, or try adding frozen chopped spinach that has been thawed and drained well.
I am glad you liked the flavors! So sorry to hear about the sauce separating. Did you make sure that the cheese was completely melted into the sauce before adding the spinach? As an alternative for next time, you can quickly wilt spinach in a separate pan and then quickly add it to the sauce.
Delicious!