Bobby Flay's Easy Pasta Dish Features A Tinned Italian Staple

Easy pasta recipes for speedy weeknight dinners are always welcome when you need comfort food fast — and Bobby Flay is a fan, too. One pasta recipe the chef enjoys cooking is inspired by a dish he tried at Roscioli, a restaurant in Rome. The rich savory flavor mainly comes from punchy anchovies and creamy butter. And with very few ingredients and a simple method, it's incredibly straightforward to whip up at home.

The sauce is made with only butter, anchovies, and pasta water. When gently heated so the butter and anchovies just start to melt together, it creates a flavorful silky mixture to toss the cooked noodles in. The finished dish of buttery glazed pasta is garnished with more anchovies for an umami-rich finish. "Then when you taste it, that's when the magic starts to happen," Flay says (via YouTube).

Roscioli's version is called burro e acciughe and is made with spaghetti, a sweet type of butter from Echiré in France (which is popular among chefs), and rye bread crumbs. Flay has slightly adjusted the recipe, as he revealed to Ina Garten on an episode of her podcast "Be My Guest." He makes it with fresh fettuccine, and serves it with chives and garlic-flavored breadcrumbs, finished with lemon zest for added brightness.

Anchovies are a great way of enhancing store-bought spaghetti sauce, but it's very easy to make your own savory pasta sauce using Bobby Flay's technique. Flay prepares his anchovy dressing by mixing together room-temperature butter, the fish, black pepper, and salt in a food processor. It's best to use unsalted butter as the anchovies themselves are salty, so you can better control the seasoning. Ensuring the butter is slightly softened rather than fridge-cold makes it easier to blend. Then, it's just a matter of adding your cooked noodles to a pan with a little pasta water, and melting in some of the anchovy butter to make a luscious sauce.

If you want to bring even more flavor to the anchovy butter, experiment with adding extra ingredients. Lemon juice, capers, or minced garlic all work well, or go for hot paprika for a touch of spice and smokiness. Once you've made the butter, you can either wrap it in plastic and keep it in the refrigerator for up to five days, or store it in the freezer for up to six months.

As well as going great with pasta, you could also use this robustly-flavored compound butter with other dishes, too. Serve it melted onto steaks or lamb, or stirred through creamy mashed potatoes. Try making charred Brussels sprouts with spicy anchovy butter, or simply spread it onto toasted bread or crackers for a delicious appetizer.