Review: Giada De Laurentiis Easy 20-Minute Pasta With Sun-Dried Tomato

2025-11-18T14:14:00.847Z

I made Giada de Laurentiis’ 20-minute pasta and couldn’t believe how easy it was.
The recipe requires only a few ingredients and can be prepared in one pot.
I would definitely make this easy pasta recipe again on a busy weeknight.

When I saw Giada De Laurentiis’ 20-minute pasta recipe, I knew I had to try it.

Giada De Laurentiis is best known for her approachable, Italian-inspired recipes that aren’t overly complicated, often only requiring a few ingredients and a short time to prepare.

This pasta recipe was just that — it promised a fast, flavorful dinner made in just one pot that required minimal prep, which is something I always look for in a weeknight meal. Made with just a few pantry ingredients and one pot, this dish is a quick and easy option for a busy weeknight or served chilled as a pasta salad for lunch the next day.

Here’s how to make Giada De Laurentiis’ 20-minute pesto and sun-dried tomatoes pasta recipe.

This recipe only needs a few basic ingredients.

To make four to six servings of this pasta, you’ll need:

1 pound of short pasta noodles such as Paccheri
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano

2/3 cup store-bought or prepared pesto
1 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and roughly chopped, oil reserved

2 tablespoons oil from sun-dried tomatoes
½ teaspoon salt

This recipe was so simple, I was able to prepare most of it while my pasta was cooking.

It took about five minutes for my water to boil, after which I added the pasta noodles to the bubbling pot. I also heavily salted the pasta water to add more flavor to the noodles as they cooked.

Giada recommended using Paccheri pasta, which is slightly larger and wider than rigatoni, but you could use any type of short noodle pasta you prefer.

While the pasta was cooking, I chopped the sun-dried tomatoes.

I drained most of the oil from the jar, reserving it in a separate measuring cup for later in the recipe.

The sun-dried tomatoes I bought were already julienne cut, so it took only a few minutes for me to chop them into smaller pieces with a large chef’s knife.

After the pasta was done, I drained it, reserving about a cup of pasta water.

The recipe recommends adding the pasta to a large mixing bowl, but you could also drain the pasta and add it back into the same pot to minimize cleanup and make it a one-pot meal.

After I added the pasta to the bowl, I heaped in the freshly grated Parmesan cheese. The recipe technically calls for Parmigiano Reggiano, but since I already had Parmesan in my fridge, I decided to use that.

I mixed the pasta and the cheese until the noodles were fully coated.

It’s essential that your noodles are hot when you add the cheese, as the heat of the pasta slightly melts it, coating each piece with a nutty layer of flavor that becomes the base for the sauce.

I then added the pesto, chopped sun-dried tomatoes, and the oil from the tomatoes.

Aside from grating the cheese and chopping the sun-dried tomatoes, this recipe required no preparation and made good use of store-bought ingredients, some of which you might already have at home.

I then tossed the pasta noodles in the sauce, making sure that every one was coated.

If the sauce feels too thick, you can also add a splash of the reserved pasta water until it loosens up and looks silky, which is what I ended up doing to make the sauce come together.

I tasted the pasta and added a pinch of salt.

I was shocked at how simple and easy this recipe was to make — plus, it really took less than 20 minutes to throw together.

The only time-consuming part of this recipe was boiling the pasta. Every other step was so quick and easy, I could have done it blindfolded.

The pasta was unbelievably flavorful, given how easy it was to whip up.

The whole process took me less than 20 minutes from start to finish — no fancy equipment or hard-to-find ingredients required.

Not only was it unbelievably easy to make, but the pasta was bright, flavorful, and satisfying, with the pesto and sun-dried tomatoes adding just the right balance of freshness and richness.

It’s the kind of easy, impressive dish that proves why Giada’s recipes have become weeknight staples for so many home cooks.

Read the full article here