Preserved Lemon Pasta
Updated November 3, 2025
- Ready In
- 25 min
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Ingredients
Salt and pepper
1 pound spaghetti, linguine or other long pasta
¼ cup unsalted butter
3 garlic cloves, grated
⅓ cup finely chopped preserved lemons (see Tip for a shortcut version), plus 2 tablespoons of brine
1 cup grated Parmesan or pecorino, plus more for topping
Extra-virgin olive oil
Handful basil leaves
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 to 6 servings)
59 grams carbs; 37 milligrams cholesterol; 467 calories; 5 grams monosaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 9 grams saturated fat; 17 grams fat; 3 grams fiber; 299 milligrams sodium; 19 grams protein; 2 grams sugar
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to the boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package instructions until al dente. Drain and reserve about 1 cup of pasta cooking water.
- Step 2
Place the pot back on medium heat. Add the butter, garlic and preserved lemon and stir until the butter has melted. Add the pasta, preserved lemon brine, Parmesan and ½ cup of pasta cooking water and toss to coat the pasta; if it looks dry, add another ¼ to ½ cup of pasta cooking water to loosen it up. Taste and, if needed, season lightly with salt, season very generously with pepper, and give it a final toss.
- Step 3
To serve, divide among plates, drizzle with olive oil, top with more grated Parmesan and scatter basil leaves over the top.
To make a quick preserved lemon substitute at home, wash and dry 2 unwaxed lemons. (Unwaxed lemons won’t be shiny and their skin is a duller yellow; you could use regular lemons but make sure to scrub the skin well.) Remove any stems. Slice one lemon crosswise into thin rounds; discard any seeds. Juice the other lemon; you should get 2 to 3 tablespoons of juice. Place the lemon slices and any juice from the cutting board, the lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of fine sea salt into a small saucepan and place on low heat. Stir until the salt has dissolved and then cover and cook for 10 minutes, stirring halfway through. Chop up the peel and flesh as instructed above, and add the liquid in place of the brine. Store in the fridge in an airtight container for 1 week.
Private Notes
Comments
New York Times, please listen whenever you give a grated cheese amount give it in weight not volume. How finely grated the cheese is can result in widely varying quantities for the same weight and thus if we are only using the volume, we may have far more or far less cheese than you envision. I communicated about this with Sam Sifton once and he certainly seem to agree and I just don’t get why you can’t make this a firm rule for all your recipes thank you
Will make again! Great for summer or a light dinner and I had everything on hand. It's nice to see a one pot recipe that interesting. I added chopped spinach and shallots (because I had them, not because the recipe needed it)
Very slightly strange, but really delicious. I forgot to add the brine but made up the saltiness with a big heap of extra Parmesan at the end. Quick and easy and I had all the ingredients on hand. Really recommended!
was wondering if sautéed asparagus would be good with this. anyone tried that? want to make it tonight but don't want to ruin my asparagus.
Tasty and a change of pace from other pasta recipes. I did all the prep while the water was heating and had time left over. And I second AMZ's request to provide weights as well as volumes.
@SomervilleBob: You will find that the ruler icon in the upper right corner of the ingredients list will convert to weight as it allows toggling between metric & U.S. standard measurements.
The metric version which is available on the iPhone says 100 gms of cheese.