6 No-Cook Pasta Sauces to Keep Your Kitchen Cool

Cooking is what makes food both safe to eat and easy to digest, but it’s also the way we create, condense and transform flavor. Heat is what makes it all possible, and heat is not something I want more of in my life right now. But “no-cook” doesn’t have to mean bland and boring—you just have to have the right starting materials. By combining fresh herbs, creamy cheeses and/or rich nuts and plenty of seasonings with starchy pasta water, you can make flavorful, satisfying pasta sauces without the fire power. The only thing you have to cook is the pasta, and boiling water is barely cooking.

Rigatoni with Pistachio, Ricotta and Herb Pesto

Sicily is famous for its pistachios, as well as for ricotta cheese. In this recipe, we use a blender to whirr the two together, along with fresh basil and chives, to create a simple pesto to toss with al dente pasta. There’s no need to grate the Parmesan—simply cut it into chunks and toss the pieces into the blender. The pesto is good on a wide variety of pasta shapes, but the hollow centers and surface ridges of rigatoni do a particularly good job of gripping the rich, creamy sauce.

Pasta with Ricotta, Tomatoes and Herbs

A family-owned restaurant that opened in 1936, Felice a Testaccio in Rome is known for serving up traditional fare, including tonnarelli cacio e pepe. But it was the spaghetti alla Felice that caught our attention during a recent visit. Piping-hot, just-drained al dente pasta was tossed with grape tomatoes, olive oil, a mixture of fresh herbs and ricotta cheese. The dish was simple, elegant and creamy but not at all heavy. Adapting the recipe, we learned that good-quality whole-milk ricotta is key. Look for a brand made without gums or stabilizers; it will taste purer and sweeter and have a superior texture. For the herbs, it’s a choose-your-own-adventure kind of deal, but we mix a few types to achieve a wide spectrum of flavors, from anise sweetness to menthol freshness, hints of citrus to earthy, woodsy notes.

Spaghetti with Goat Cheese, Mint and Peas

This one-pot pasta dish is our simplified take on a recipe from Rich Table by Evan and Sarah Rich. The only knife work needed to make this vibrant no-cook sauce is a little mint chopping. Other than that, all you have to do is mash up some tender green peas with tangy goat cheese, lime juice and zest and the aforementioned mint. Season to taste and combine with some starchy pasta water, and you have a luscious, surprisingly complex and creamy sauce.

Spaghetti with Lemon Pesto

This lemon pesto hails from Amalfi, where the trees are dripping with enormous, sweet lemons, and citrus is in everything. On the lemon farm that her family has owned for six generations, Giovanna Aceto taught us to wake up spaghetti with lemons—"a sauce that hints at bright citrusy sweetness, yet remains decidedly savory," our editorial director J.M. Hirsch wrote. "The lemon accents without overwhelming." In addition to blending zest into the pesto, we add it to the pasta cooking water, so that the oils from the zest lightly perfume the spaghetti, reinforcing the lemony notes of the pesto.

Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes, Capers and Herbs

The tiny Italian island of Pantelleria off the coast of Sicily is the home of pesto pantesco, a puree of fruity olive oil, fresh tomatoes, leafy herbs, briny capers and pungent garlic. For a quick, summery dinner, we deconstructed the pesto and created a rustic no-cook sauce to toss with hot, just-drained pasta, creating a sort of pasta salad (the dish is warm, not hot, when served). Toasted almonds add crunch and pecorino cheese adds a sharpness that rounds out the flavors.

Gemelli with Sicilian Trapanese Pesto

When we sampled this no-cook tomato sauce in Sicily, it was made the traditional way, with a large mortar and pestle. A food processor gets it done faster and more easily. Topped with crisp, olive oil–infused croutons and toasted almonds, the dish is served warm or at room temperature after the pasta has had a few minutes to soak in the flavorful sauce. Instead of blanched, slivered almonds, you also could use sliced or whole almonds that have been roughly chopped.

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Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.