Late summer’s sweet crisp corn and gluten-free pasta is added to a creamy basil goat cheese sauce that helps to mellow the spice of red pepper flakes and adds an herbal creamy flavor to the sweet and spicy mix. The toasted sunflower seeds are the perfect late summer garnish and add a bit of crunch and texture.
I love the late summertime. The mornings are a bit cooler, the sunflowers are blooming, and the sweet corn is in abundance {hells-to-the-yes my frands!}.
To me sweet corn is like candy when you get good at corn pickin’ {I’m pretty sure I just luck out…I pick the prettiest ears and they come at me tasting mighty fine.}.
I like adding sweet corn to a lot of different dishes adding some sweetness and some subtle crunch.
I added sweet corn to my pasta the other night, along with a spicy goat cheese basil sauce, and it was the perfect amount of sweet to combat the perfect amount of spice {wowza!}.
This Spicy Sweet Corn and Sunflower Pasta with Basil Goat Cheese Sauce left the Hubster speechless {unless you count “oh my…” As speech}. I made the sweet and spicy pasta dish (along with some chicken breasts), plated it, and stuck it in front of his nose. Momentarily distracted by his computer, Hubby stuffed a big mouthful of this new dish into his pie hole. He immediately stopped looking at his computer, said “oh my” and didn’t look up from his plate until every morsel was gone. I guess he liked it. A lot.
The creamy basil goat cheese sauce helps to mellow the spice of the cooked pepper flakes and adds an herbal creamy flavor to the sweet and spicy mix. The toasted sunflower seeds add a bit of crunch and texture as a perfect late summer garnish.
sunflower pasta
Ingredients
- 1 TBSP olive oil
- 1 1/2 TBSP sunflower seed kernels
- 12 oz . gluten-free spaghetti noodles
- 2 ears of corn kernels or 1 1/4 cans of sweet corn kernels
- 1 medium sweet onion diced
- 1/2 TBSP red pepper flakes
- 6 0 z. goat cheese
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp fresh basil plus more for garnish
Instructions
- Saute the sunflower seeds in 1 TBSP olive oil in a large skillet. Set aside.
- In a large skillet, cook the noodles according to package directions.
- Saute the onion, corn, and red pepper flakes in the same skillet as the sunflower seeds, using the residual olive oil from the skillet (approx. 5-10 minutes, until the veggies are tender).
- In a blender, pulse the goat cheese, parm cheese, milk, salt and pepper together until well blended.*
- Pour the blended cheese sauce over the skillet veggies. Then combine this with the noodles. Fold in the basil, and top with extra parm cheese and the sauteed sunflower seeds.
*You can also use a hand mixer or food processor for this part.
**recipe initially adapted from Naturally Ella.
***Hubby and I usually add some protein to the dish, like grilled or baked chicken breasts. It goes awesome with this sweet and spicy pasta!
This looks spectacular! I’m a goat cheese addict. Good call!
You had me at basil goat cheese….actually no, you had me way before then because this looks and sounds sooooo good! If you had to sum up August in a dinner dish, this would be it. I’m so with you on the late summer vibes too btw. I love the feel in the weather right before it starts to change again and the fall fruits and flowers start blooming.
Yes! The late summer vibe is one of my favorites and feel that it gets heavily overlooked. Glad that there are two of us that feel the same way!
Girl, you had me at basil and goat cheese and then you added sweet corn-LOVE!! I’m all over this recipe!
Haha! I right there with ya on the basil and goat cheese. I mean…it’s goat cheese! I am always going to follow someone around if I know that they have goat cheese on hand!