Weeknight dinners don’t have to be boring. In less than 30 minutes, you can have a delicious pot of Easy Lemon Garlic Pasta on the table! Your whole family will appreciate this tasty lemon pasta dish!
It seems like everyone has insane schedules these days! Quick and easy recipes are a key to getting everyone around the dinner table. This easy lemon garlic pasta is packed with flavor in an easy to follow recipe that is ready super fast.
This recipe requires only a few simple ingredients…most of which you already have at the house! Be sure to choose a high quality olive oil and Parmesan to use when making the lemon garlic butter sauce for pasta since they help make up the bulk of the flavor in this dish.
For this pasta, I use with a spaghetti or angel hair pasta. My kids definitely prefer the super thin texture of the angel hair but I prefer to make lemon garlic spaghetti over angel hair pasta. You choose your favorite 🙂
Some other variations of this recipe that would be delicious include:
- Lemon garlic capellini (look for capellini solds in little pasta nests)
- Garlic shrimp pasta with lemon
- Lemon garlic chicken pasta
- Parmesan garlic spaghetti with mushrooms and lemon
- Lemon garlic kale pasta
One thing that really helps take the flavor of this dish up a notch is lightly toasting the spices in a little bit of olive oil along with the garlic. Lemon zest from fresh lemons really help give the pasta that citrus punch.
When you are boiling your pasta, be sure to save about 1/4 cup of pasta water before draining the noodles. The starchy water from the pasta will help your lemon garlic butter sauce for pasta come together perfectly and cling to the pasta. This step ensures your lemon garlic pasta is perfect every time.
My family loves this recipe and I love how simple and easy it is to make. It is so perfect for a quick weeknight meal and, since it is pasta, it is a great way to feed a crowd too. Want to add some protein? Shrimp and pasta go perfectly together. Or, try lemon garlic chicken pasta!
If you want to try a lightened up version of this dish, be sure to check out my recipe for easy lemon garlic vegetable noodles. The recipe has the same lemon garlic butter sauce for pasta from of this recipe but with zucchini noodles in place of traditional poasta.
If you make this easy lemon pasta recipe or any other recipe from the blog, I’d love to hear about it! Let me know in the comments or snap a photo and tag it #MySuburbanKitchen on Instagram or Twitter. Also, try these other great dinner ideas for tonight.
If you enjoyed this Easy Lemon Garlic Pasta recipe, check out these other great pasta dinner ideas:
- Summer Squash Pasta Salad with Prosciutto
- One Pot Greek Chicken Pasta
- One Pot Spinach Artichoke Pasta
- Spinach Sausage Pasta
What you’ll need for this recipe:
- 1 box angel hair or spaghetti
- Salt and pepper
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp lemon zest
- 5 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
- 5 Tbsp butter
- 2 cups baby spinach torn
- 1/3 cup grated Parmesan
- 2 tsp lemon juice
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Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add 1 Tbsp salt and pasta. Cook pasta according to package directions for al dente. Reserve 1/4 cup pasta water and then drain pasta.
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In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and lemon zest. Cook for 1 minute. Stir in Italian seasoning and crushed red pepper and cook for an additional minute.
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Add butter to pan and, once melted, add baby spinach, pasta, reserved pasta water and lemon juice. Once spinach begins to wilt, stir in Parmesan cheese. Serve immediately.
that looks super delicious, I’m going to make this tonight!
Made this last night along with some grilled chicken. It was good. Will have to double or even triple the recipe next time as we like our pasta saucy. I added capers and artichoke hearts. This is pretty much the same sauce made for chicken piccata.
Glad you enjoyed this! The capers would definitely be delicious.
Delicious! My wife and I loved this. I made a version with vegan Parmesan, and randomly added some broccollini.
I am so happy you enjoyed it! I use nutritional yeast in place of Parmesan and it is delicious.
We made this tonight and it was great. The subtle flavors all blended nicely in the pan. Definitely will make it again. Thank you!
I am so glad you enjoyed it! This is one of our favorite easy dinner recipes.
Made this for dinner tonight, was fast and tasty! Looking forward to playing around with adding protein the next time I make it.
I am so happy to hear you enjoyed it! I love how fast it is too.
Delicious! I made it with fresh pasta and topped it off with slow cooker garlic lemon rosemary chicken thighs. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing. Followed recipe. Used Penne pasta, added more garlic 10-12 garlic minced, more lemon, more Italian seasoning, chili flakes, and definitely more spinach. Next time I’ll add chop red bell pepper for color. Very tasty, quick. Nice side dish for fish and chicken.
I was looking for a recipe for Pasta. What caught my eye is … Garlic Pasta. Followed recipe …. but added more garlic, more Italian seasoning and more spinach ( they wilt during cooking process ) and less butter.
Simple …. quick …. Delicious.
I used the same recipe for Zucchini Zoodles .. but added chop red bell pepper for color. Another Delicious … quick side dish.
Thank you for sharing
So glad you liked it! You can never go wrong with more garlic and more spinach in my book!
This is my all-time favorite pasta recipe. I tried to sign up for the newsletter but said that my email was invalid or something.
Thanks so much for the compliment! Please email me at mysuburbankitchen @ gmail.com with your email I will be happy to sign you up for the newsletter on my end.
Easy recipe
Quick and tasty! Subbed out for vegan butter/cheese. Also tried it with spaghetti squash instead of pasta with great results
Made this as a side for New Years Eve and it was hit!! Everyone love it!!!!
Your beautiful hunger-inducing image led me to your page. Great recipe too!
So delicious!! I added extra garlic and lemon juice with fresh grilled chicken.
This is delicious and it has been added to my favorites list. I’ve made it once with shrimp just added them with the garlic. Came out great