Easy Summer Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes and Toasted Almonds

This easy pasta is beyond tasty and takes less than 20 minutes to make. You don’t really need a recipe for this, feel free to add more or less of the ingredients to suit your taste. The nutritional yeast really adds a lot of flavor here. Enjoy this fresh pasta, full of light summer flavors!

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

1 pound of penne Salt, to taste 3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 Tbsp sliced unsalted almonds
1 cup of fresh basil, roughly torn
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast + more for serving

In a large pot, bring some water and salt to boil to cook the pasta.
Stir in the dried pasta, cook until 1 minute shy of al dente, reserving about a cup of the pasta water while draining the water.

In the same pot, hear the olive oil over medium, add the garlic and dried basil, and cook for about a minute, stirring often.

Add the red pepper flakes, almonds, season with salt, and cook until the almonds appear toasted, about 1 minute on medium heat

Add the cherry tomatoes and cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Don’t over cook the tomatoes, let them remain whole, but slightly wilted.

Add the reserved pasta water, nutritional yeast and cook until you start see water bubbling around the edge of the pot.

Add the pasta and cook over medium-low, tossing to coat the them, about a minute.

Turn off heat, stir in the fresh basil, then taste and season with salt.

Serve with some extra nutritional yeast