The Pasta You Never Knew You Needed

We’re going to make subscribing to The Bittman Project worth it, in part by offering super-cheap, super-delicious recipes you’ll want to cook. The idea is that we’ll post one ultra-budget-friendly recipe each week for our members only. While this can’t ever be more than back-of-the-napkin math (“affordable” is subjective), we figure that cooking your way through these recipes over the course of the year will more than offset the cost of an annual subscription, which amounts to about $1.35 per week.

Today, we have one of those wonderful from-the-pantry pasta dishes that can be prepared in the time it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta: Pasta al Tonno, or pasta with tuna sauce. Canned tuna is not only acceptable but necessary (the ideal tuna here would be that taken from the tuna’s belly, the fattiest part, and cured, preferably by your Sicilian grandmother, in great olive oil). But most of us (including me) don’t have that, and we’re working with a budget here. Do buy tuna packed in olive oil, though — I really like Wild Planet. What you’re looking for is dark, soft meat that will flake nicely and add its rich flavor to the sauce.