Creamy Red Pepper Sauce

Why this Recipe

Creamy red pepper sauce is a quick recipe you can get on the table in under an hour and it's perfect for surprising your family or guests with something completely new and unique. The flavor blast in this sauce is otherworldly and is one of my favorite Friday night pasta choices.

Roasted red peppers. Tomatoes. Basil. This sauce will have you BEGGING for seconds, thirds, and a spoon to clean the pot. The combination of sweet roasted red peppers and spicy calabrian peppers makes this pasta ADDICTING. Pair it with some Pistachio Pesto and Classic Italian Fried Meatballs for a delicious meal!

In our house, any pasta that takes less than an hour is a Friday night pasta, and more than an hour is a Sunday pasta. We obviously eat a lot of pasta here, but creamy red pepper sauce is one of my new favorites. I love that I can get even more vegetables into my family's bellies with this dish!

Red peppers. You need a combination of jarred and fresh peppers. The flavor of the roasted and marinated red peppers will add to the depth of the sauce.

Chicken broth. You can substitute vegetable broth. The broth helps the consistency thin out slightly so it isn't chunky when you take it out of the blender.

Heavy cream. You could substitute coconut milk, but it changes the flavor of the dish. Coconut milk is not my personal favorite in this recipe. If you are looking for a way to get rid of dairy, consider just leaving it out. The reason we add dairy is to temper the acidity.

Calabrian Chili Peppers. These peppers in oil add the kick to this sauce but can be substituted with crushed red pepper flakes. The taste of the calabrian chili peppers has a little more zing and sweetness to it that you will miss with just red pepper flakes.

*Please see the recipe card below for more information on the ingredients.

How to Make Creamy Red Pepper Sauce

Thankfully, this is a quick recipe. It's perfect for when you want to cook something really tasty but don't want to spend the whole night in the kitchen!

Roasting the Red Peppers

Step 1: Start by preheating the oven to 450° F. Quarter the peppers by slicing down the side of each one. Save one side of a pepper for later to saute. Place the rest of the peppers on a baking pan with whole garlic cloves and season with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast in the oven for 15 minutes.

When you remove the peppers they should be soft. If you see little pockets of liquid still sitting in the peppers, place them back in the oven to cook off this liquid. Once they are completely roasted, they should have slight black edges.

Simmering the Sauce

Step 2: Bring a large pan to medium heat. Add olive oil and wait until it begins shimmering. Chop up the remaining side of the red pepper. Add the red pepper and shallots to the pan and saute for 5 minutes or until they have softened.

Step 3: Then stir in the garlic and calabrian peppers and saute for another 2 minutes, stirring often.

Step 4: Add the crushed tomatoes (if you're using whole plum tomatoes, break them down with a wooden spoon). Add in the basil and ½ teaspoon of salt and bring to a simmer.

Blending the Red Peppers

Step 5: Add the roasted peppers to a blender along with the jarred red peppers and garlic. Add chicken broth and 1 teaspoon of salt. Process the red peppers until smooth.

Step 6: Then remove the sauce from the heat, and pour it into the blender. Blend everything together until completely smooth.

Step 7: While the sauce is simmering, bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt the water. Add the pasta and cook until al dente. Try to time the pasta to be finished after the rest of the sauce is cooked. Don't add the pasta to the boiling water until after the roasted red peppers and tomato sauce have been combined.

Step 8: Pour all of the sauce back into the pan and simmer for 15 minutes, adding a ¼ cup of pasta water to help smooth out the sauce and bind it to the pasta.

Step 9: Remove the sauce from the heat and stir in the heavy cream. The sauce should develop an orange/pink color shown in the image above, although not as pink as penne alla vodka might be.

Add the pasta to the sauce and combine. Serve with parmesan cheese and more fresh basil.

Why is there tomato in the recipe?

People always ask why there is tomato in my creamy red pepper sauce recipe. It's a fair question. The answer is simply because I like the way it tastes.

You can leave out the tomatoes, but simmering the sauce may take a little more time to thicken it up. You also have to make sure that the roasted red peppers are processed really smoothly to make sure the sauce will thicken and you won't feel all the bits and pieces of the peppers.

Recipe FAQs

Add a Protein?

I love adding Homemade Italian sausage to this dish. You can Brown the ground sausage in the pan before adding the pepper and shallots. Remove it from the pan and set it aside.

Once you add the sauce back to the pan from the blender, add in the sausage and simmer with the sauce for 15 minutes. Sausage is my favorite protein to add to this dish to make it a complete meal but you can also add ground beef or serve it over our Pesto Stuffed Chicken

What can I Serve with this Pasta?

• Looking to add some veggies to the side of your pasta? Try these: Italian Lacinato Kale Recipe (Tuscan) or Italian Cabbage Recipe.
• If you need some protein with your sauce, you may want to try Baked Italian Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms or Cast Iron Chicken Breast
• I also love to use this sauce when I'm making sandwiches like chicken parm or eggplant parm, or I use the leftover sauce in pizza!