Gordon Ramsay’s sardine pasta is spaghetti tossed with tinned sardines, chilli, garlic and fresh oregano, finished with rocket (arugula) and topped with crispy garlic breadcrumbs. Serves 2 from a tin of sardines and whatever is in the cupboard. Ready in under 15 minutes.
The recipe is in the Ultimate Cookery Course. Ramsay writes “never be sniffy about tinned fish” and calls sardines “the secret behind plenty a quick and cheap meal.” He cooks the full dish in his YouTube video.
The breadcrumbs are what lift it above a basic store-cupboard pasta. Three minutes in a pan with garlic and oil turns stale bread into a crunchy golden topping. It adds the texture the soft sardines cannot.
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Gordon Ramsay’s Spaghetti with Chilli, Sardines and Oregano
Course: Dinner, MainCuisine: Italian, BritishDifficulty: Easy2
servings5
minutes12
minutes520
kcal15 minutes
Store-cupboard pasta from the Ultimate Cookery Course. Tinned sardines with chilli, garlic and oregano, topped with crispy garlic breadcrumbs and rocket. Two servings, 15 minutes.
Ingredients
Olive oil, for frying (or use the oil from the sardine tin)
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
75g (1 cup) rough breadcrumbs, made from stale bread
200g (7 oz) dried spaghetti
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 x 120g (4 oz) tin boneless sardines in olive oil, drained
5 oregano sprigs, leaves only, or ½ tsp dried oregano
50g (2 oz) rocket (arugula) leaves
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions
- Toast the breadcrumbs: Heat a glug of oil in a small frying pan. Add half the chopped garlic and the breadcrumbs. Cook over medium heat for about 3 minutes until golden and crunchy. Season, toss together and drain on kitchen paper.
- Cook the pasta: Boil the spaghetti in salted water until al dente, following packet instructions.
- Fry the sardines: In a separate frying pan, heat a little oil and fry the remaining garlic and chilli for 1-2 minutes. Flake the sardines into chunks and toss in the pan.
- Combine: Drain the pasta and add to the sardine pan. Toss well. Add the oregano leaves and season to taste.
- Serve: Stir the rocket (arugula) through the pasta. Divide between plates and scatter the crispy garlic breadcrumbs over the top. Serve immediately.
Notes
- Ramsay says mackerel works just as well as sardines. Use the oil from the sardine tin instead of olive oil for a deeper fish flavour. The UCC also has a tip on using stale bread for breadcrumbs, croutons and the Tuscan salad Panzanella.
FAQs
Why use tinned sardines instead of fresh?
The recipe is designed as a store-cupboard meal. Tinned sardines are already cooked and boneless, so they flake apart in seconds and you skip all the gutting and deboning. Ramsay says in the UCC to never look down on tinned fish because it is the base of “plenty a quick and cheap meal.”
The oil from the tin is worth using too. Fry the chilli and garlic in it instead of olive oil and you get a richer, fishier base for the sauce.
Can you use a different fish?
Ramsay says mackerel works just as well. Any tinned oily fish in olive oil will give the same result. The tuna pasta bake from the site uses tinned tuna in a completely different way, baked with béchamel instead of tossed in a pan.
Anchovies would also work, but they dissolve into the oil rather than staying in chunks. That gives you more of a puttanesca-style sauce than the chunky sardine texture Ramsay is after here.
What breadcrumbs work best?
Stale bread torn into rough crumbs gives the best texture. Ramsay says the rougher the better because uneven pieces create different levels of crunch. Shop-bought breadcrumbs work but they brown faster and more evenly, which makes the topping feel less homemade.
Panko is too light for this. You want crumbs that hold the garlic oil and stay crunchy on top of the hot pasta for a few minutes before softening.
How is this different from other quick pastas?
The sardines and breadcrumb topping set it apart. The shrimp scampi from Ramsay in 10 is another fast seafood pasta, but that uses prawns and butter. The basil pesto is quicker still but has no protein at all.
This sits between the two: faster than a prawn dish because the sardines are already cooked, but more substantial than a plain herb sauce. The meatball spaghetti takes longer but feeds more people if you need to scale up.
Does sardine pasta keep well?
Eat it fresh. The breadcrumbs go soft within minutes of sitting and the rocket wilts in the heat. Ramsay says to serve immediately, and he means it.
The sardine and chilli base reheats fine the next day, but you lose the breadcrumb crunch. Toast a fresh batch and add fresh rocket when you reheat, and it comes back to life. The orzo pasta salad from UHC is a better make-ahead option if you want pasta for lunch the next day.
