Burrata Pasta — Creamy, Indulgent, and Made for the People You Keep Showing Up For

Spring. The crawfish are running and I'm running with them. First boil of the season — fifty pounds, Rémy at the helm, the neighborhood gathering like birds on a wire. This is the seventh spring of writing, the seventh return of the crawfish, and the repetition isn't monotony. The repetition is prayer. You pray by repeating. You cook by repeating. You love by repeating. You show up at the same stove with the same pot and the same cayenne and the same people, and the showing up IS the prayer, and the prayer is answered before you finish it, because the answering is in the asking.

Made crawfish Monica — a creamy Cajun pasta with crawfish tails, cream, tasso, and green onion over rotini. It's a Jazz Fest dish, famous in New Orleans, and I've brought it home because some dishes are too good to stay in one city. The tasso does the work — smoky, spicy, salty — and the crawfish ride the cream like little red boats on a white sea. Rémy declared it "top five." He's keeping a top five list in his journal now. The boy ranks his food. The boy is a critic. God help the restaurants of Louisiana when this child is old enough to eat out without supervision.

Rémy’s top five list got me thinking about what dishes earn a permanent seat at the table — the ones you return to like a prayer, the way we return to the crawfish every spring. We didn’t have rotini and tasso on hand this week, but we had burrata, and burrata has that same generous, creamy spirit that made the Monica so unforgettable. This burrata pasta became our weeknight echo of Jazz Fest: different city, same devotion, same white-sea richness, same kid leaning over the bowl before it even hits the table.

Burrata Pasta

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 12 oz spaghetti or linguine
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/3 cup dry white wine
• 1/2 cup pasta cooking water, reserved
• 8 oz fresh burrata cheese (2 balls)
• 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
• Salt and black pepper, to taste
• Flaky sea salt, for finishing
• Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling

Instructions

1. Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Before draining, reserve 1/2 cup of the starchy cooking water. Drain and set aside.
2. Build the tomato base. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring frequently, until the garlic is fragrant and just golden, about 2 minutes. Do not let it burn.
3. Cook the tomatoes. Add the cherry tomatoes to the skillet and season with salt and black pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes begin to blister and release their juices, about 6–8 minutes.
4. Deglaze. Pour in the white wine and stir, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Let it reduce by half, about 2 minutes.
5. Combine pasta and sauce. Add the drained pasta to the skillet and toss to coat in the tomato mixture. Add reserved pasta water a splash at a time to loosen the sauce to your liking. Taste and adjust seasoning.
6. Add the burrata. Transfer pasta to a large serving bowl or divide among plates. Tear the burrata over the top, letting the creamy interior spill into the pasta. Scatter fresh basil over everything.
7. Finish and serve. Drizzle generously with extra virgin olive oil and finish with flaky sea salt. Serve immediately while the burrata is still soft and luxurious.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 520 | Protein: 19g | Fat: 22g | Carbs: 62g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 410mg