This Vegan Pasta Puttanesca is a simple Italian pasta dish featuring olives, capers, garlic, and tomatoes for a pantry-friendly meal that comes together quickly!

pasta puttanesca
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Pasta Puttanesca is a traditional Italian recipe that uses tomatoes, olives, capers, and garlic to create a simple pasta dish. Many recipes use anchovies but I wanted to keep this recipe vegan and I found that the olives and capers added plenty of salty, umami flavor without needing anything else. This particular recipe is a riff on a recipe I made in a cooking class at Mise En Place.

Ingredients & Substitutions

  • Pasta– I used whole wheat spaghetti but any type of spaghetti or linguine works great in this recipe!
  • Olive oil- I recommend a high-quality olive oil as the flavor will shine through in the end result.
  • Garlic– I used full cloves of garlic pressed in a garlic press but minced garlic is fine.
  • Oregano– Dried oregano adds an herbal, earlthy flavor.
  • Red pepper flakes– This adds a spicy flavor to the dish. You can add more or less depending on your spice preference.
  • Olives– I used kalamata olives but any pitted black olive is fine.
  • Capers– Capers are immature flower buds that have a briny, salty flavor.
  • Tomatoes– I used chopped Roma tomatoes but you can use cherry tomatoes or even canned diced tomatoes, although fresh tomatoes have the most flavor.

How to Make Pasta Puttanesca