Pasta With Lemon, Capers and Anchovies
Updated Oct. 15, 2025
- Total Time
- 25 minutes
- Prep Time
- 10 minutes
- Cook Time
- 15 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- Salt, as needed
- ½lemon (halved lengthwise), trimmed and thinly sliced into half-moons, any seeds removed
- 8ounces spaghetti, bucatini, linguine or other long pasta shape
- 3tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, more for drizzling
- 3 to 6anchovy fillets, roughly chopped
- 2tablespoons drained capers
- 4garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- Crushed red pepper
- 1tablespoon unsalted butter, diced
- ¼ to ½cup chopped fresh herbs or greens, such as parsley, basil, mint, dill, celery leaves or arugula
Preparation
- Step 1
Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat, then season it liberally with salt; it should taste as salty as the sea. Add the lemon slices and let cook for 2 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer to a clean kitchen towel and pat dry. Cut lemon slices into quarters so you get little lemon wedges and set aside.
- Step 2
Add pasta to the pot and cook until just shy of al dente (check package directions and subtract a minute or so). Using a large mug or measuring cup, scoop out about 1 cup of the pasta water, then drain pasta well.
- Step 3
While the pasta is cooking, warm the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in the reserved lemon wedges, anchovies and capers (you should hear them sizzle) and cook, stirring occasionally, until fragrant and golden, 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium and add the garlic and a large pinch of crushed red pepper; cook until the garlic is golden, another minute or two.
- Step 4
Toss in the spaghetti, a large splash of pasta water and butter. Using tongs, keep tossing until everything is well combined and the pasta is al dente, 1 to 2 minutes, adding more pasta water as needed to make things saucy. Season with more salt and crushed red pepper, if needed, and toss in the herbs, letting them wilt. Serve immediately.
Private Notes
Comments
We always make EXTRAS of that Lemon-Garlic-Anchovy Chicken...and then, another night, cut up the leftover chicken, amplify the sauce + serve it all over pasta. So, we've tasted the sauce without chicken...and find it far more multidimensional + deeper flavored WITH the chicken juices. Also, that recipe includes plenty of squeezed lemon juice, plus a lot more capers, anchovies, garlic et al. And we, I think, improve it further by adding lemon zest + deglazing the pan w/white wine. Buon appetito!
I make something very similar. I add a little chicken stock to the pan with the anchovies and capers, and sometimes I like to throw in some quartered artichoke hearts. It's a delicious, quick meal that's fancy enough for company.
This is very similar to a Melissa Clark recipe that I adore and make on regular rotation. She uses boneless chicken thighs and keeps her garlic crushed so one has to be careful not to over cook the garlic slices in this recipe. To mix it in to pasta with lemon wedges sounds so good I cannot wait to make this one without the chicken.
What is meant by "trimmed" in regards to the lemon slices?
@Greg Same. Am I peeling the rind off? Was ready to make this recipe and had everything out but this one ambiguous piece of information has me hesitant to proceed. Maybe I’ll just make something else….
This was on the bland side. I added more anchovies, uncooked, at the end. If I'd had more capers I would have added them too. Oil on medium high blackened my lemon slices, but Melissa didn't say how thin to slice them, so I went on the very thin side, and they were Meyer lemons from my own tree, so a thin skin. I'll try this again. Molly Baz was the first one to come up with the idea of adding a dump-truck load of salt to pasta water. I don't care for the resulting salty pasta flavor.
I liked the resulting flavor (hard to go wrong with lemon, anchovies & capers!) although I need to add more salt to the water next time. But the lemon rind was still quite bitter even after blanching and caramelizing. How to fix that?