Here’s a dish that is so much more than the sum of its parts, which are all simple pantry ingredients that you probably have on hand right now. Bread crumbs were traditionally a thrifty way for Italian housewives to use up leftover crusts of bread, but they really make the dish; sautéed in olive oil, the bread crumbs get crispy and make a crunchy crust on each strand of pasta. I use black and green olives to get both the fruity and the salty flavors, but if you have only one or the other the dish will still be great. It really doesn’t get much easier than this—or more appealing.

　　

Ingredients

4 to 6 servings

　　1 pound spaghetti pasta

　　3/4 cup olive oil

　　2/3 cup Italian-style seasoned dried bread crumbs

　　1/4 teaspoon salt, or more to taste

　　1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or more to taste

　　3/4 cup pitted and coarsely chopped black olives, such as kalamata

　　3/4 cup pitted and coarsely chopped large green olives, such as Cerignola

　　1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

　　4 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

　　

Step 1

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender but still firm to the bite, about 8 minutes.

　　

Step 2

Meanwhile, in a large sauté pan, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the bread crumbs, salt, and pepper. Stirring constantly, cook the bread crumbs until golden brown, about 2 minutes.

　　

Step 3

Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of the pasta water. Stir the pasta into the bread crumb mixture. Remove the pan from the heat and add the black and green olives. Add the Parmesan cheese and 3 tablespoons of the parsley. Season the pasta with salt and pepper, if needed. Gently toss to coat, adding reserved pasta water, if needed, to loosen the pasta. Transfer to a large serving bowl and garnish with the remaining 1 tablespoon parsley.

　　Giada at Home by Giada De Laurentiis. Copyright © 2010 by Giada De Laurentiis. Published by the Crown Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved.Giada De Laurentiis is the star of Food Network's Everyday Italian and Behind the Bash. She attended the Cordon Bleu in Paris, and then worked in a variety of Los Angeles restaurants, including Wolfgang Puck's Spago, before starting her own catering and private-chef company, GDL Foods. The granddaughter of movie producer Dino De Laurentiis, Giada was born in Rome and grew up in Los Angeles, where she now lives.