Gordon Ramsay Uses An Unexpected Vegetable In Pasta

I love pasta and anything Gordan Ramsay-related, so when I saw a new pasta recipe from him on YouTube, I knew I had to see what delicious creation he came up with. However, the famous chef used an interesting choice of greenery for his pasta: lettuce.

You may be thinking, why not use spinach? Well, Ramsay explained his choice. "This kind of inspiration came from working in France, where we had fresh peas finished with bacon and lettuce; it's the same with pasta," he said in the video. "It's beautiful ... I almost like this sort of salad. It's better tasting than fresh spinach. It sort of gives a really nice lightness to the pasta."

Spinach is used in many pasta dishes, including stuffed cheese and spinach ravioli, creamy spinach pasta, and smashed tomatoes and spinach sauce. However, Ramsay strays away from the usual for this herb-filled dish.

In just 10 minutes, Ramsay throws this dish together. He first boils spaghetti noodles in heavily salted water, and while that cooks, he creates the sauce. It includes pancetta, similar to bacon, oil, black pepper, fresh garlic, and Fresno chilis. Other ingredients you'd need to make this dish include butter, frozen peas, fresh chives, parsley, basil, vegetable broth, and, of course, your lettuce. 

If this has sparked your desire for more lettuce-infused dishes, there are quite a few options to try out. Think of a Caesar salad, for example, which, as of late, has been turned into wraps and sandwiches. But there is also a pasta version, which takes all the ingredients of the popular salad and adds in noodles for a bit more flare. You could even take it a step further and turn a BLT sandwich, which famously uses lettuce as a main ingredient, but instead of putting it between bread, toss the sandwich fillings in with a pasta of your choosing.