Roasted Red Pepper Pasta is an easy weeknight meal made by blending roasted bell peppers into a creamy sauce with tortellini, spinach, and cheese.
I love having tortellini in the freezer for those nights when I want something delicious, without too much work. Some of my other favorite pasta recipes that use tortellini include Creamy Tomato and Spinach Tortellini and Pesto Tortellini Pasta.
Whether you’re looking for a great meatless meal idea or just craving healthier comfort food, this Roasted Red Pepper Pasta will not disappoint! It’s easy to make and the flavors are delicious!
How to Make Roasted Red Pepper Pasta:
1. Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain, rinse with cold water, and set aside.
2. Roast the bell peppers: Turn oven to HIGH broil. Place the red bell pepper halves, skin side up, on a foil lined baking sheet press them flat with your hand. Broil on the top rack of your oven for 10 minutes, or until the skins are mostly black. Remove from oven and transfer charred peppers to a plastic bag, allowing the peppers to steam in the bag for at least 10 minutes. Remove the bell peppers from the bag and peel the outer blackened skins off the tops of the peppers–they should slide off easily.
3. Sauté onions and garlic. In the meantime, melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and garlic and sauté for 2-3 minutes.
Blend: Transfer the mixture to your blender or food processor. Chop the peppers and add them with the onions in your blender. Process everything until smooth.
Finish sauce: Pour the mixture back into your skillet over medium heat. Add the chicken broth and season with salt, and pepper. Stir in the cream. Stir in spinach. Add the cooked tortellini noodles and toss to coat. Add most of the parmesan cheese (reserving a little for topping in each individual bowl). Sprinkle parsley on top.
Make Ahead Instructions:
To save time, roast the bell peppers and sauté the onions, garlic, and butter and then blend it all in a food processor (see step 3 of the recipe). Store this mixture, covered, in the refrigerator until you are ready to finish the meal, then cook the tortellini and continue with step 4.
Variations:
- Pasta: Use any type of pasta you like, including penne and shell noodles.
- Veggies: add additional chopped veggies including zucchini, mushrooms or whatever you like. Sauté veggies in step 3 with the onions and garlic.
- Chicken: stir in chopped and cooked chicken at the final step of the recipe.
- Vegan: substitute vegan butter, vegetable broth, and soy milk or coconut cream for the heavy cream. leave out the parmesan or add 6 Tbs raw cashews, 4 teaspoons, nutritional yeast, ¼ tsp sea salt, and ⅛ tsp. garlic powder to a food processor, blend until smooth and stir in to pasta in place of parmesan cheese.
Consider trying these tortellini recipes:
- One Pan Creamy Lemon Chicken Tortellini
- Vegetable Tortellini Soup
- Creamy Pesto Tortellini Pasta Salad
- Southwest Tortellini Pasta Salad
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Recipe
Roasted Red Pepper Pasta
Equipment
Ingredients
- 10 ounces tortellini (the refrigerated kind), cheese or chicken
- 3 Tablespoons butter
- 1 small onion , chopped
- 3 cloves garlic , minced
- 2 large red bell peppers stems and seeds removed, cut in half vertically from stem to butt
- 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
- salt and freshly ground black pepper , to taste
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 cups fresh spinach leaves
- 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
- 2-3 Tablespoons fresh chopped parsley ,or 1 tablespoon dried
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain, rinse with cold water, and set aside.
- Turn oven to HIGH broil. Place the red bell pepper halves, skin side up, on a foil lined baking sheet. Press them flat with your hand. Broil on the top rack of your oven for 10 minutes, or until the skins are mostly black. Remove from oven and transfer charred peppers to plastic bag. Close the opening and allow the peppers to steam in the bag for at least 10 minutes.
- In the meantime, melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and garlic and sauté for 2-3 minutes. Transfer the mixture to your blender or food processor.
- Remove the bell peppers from the bag and peel the outer blackened skins off the tops of the peppers--they should slide off easily. Add the peppers to the blender. Process everything until smooth.
- Pour the mixture back into your skillet over medium heat. Add chicken broth and season with salt, and pepper. Stir in cream. Stir in spinach. Add the cooked tortellini noodles and toss to coat. Add most of the parmesan cheese (reserving a little for topping in each individual bowl). Sprinkle parsley on top.
Notes
- Pasta: Use any type of pasta you like, including penne and shell noodles.
- Veggies: add additional chopped veggies including zucchini, mushrooms or whatever you like. Sauté veggies in step 3 with the onions and garlic.
- Chicken: stir in chopped and cooked chicken at the final step of the recipe.
- Vegan: substitute vegan butter, vegetable broth, and soy milk or coconut cream for the heavy cream. leave out the parmesan or add 6 Tbs raw cashews, 4 teaspoons, nutritional yeast, ¼ tsp sea salt, and ⅛ tsp. garlic powder to a food processor, blend until smooth and stir in to pasta in place of parmesan cheese.
Nutrition
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I originally shared this recipe July 2015. Updated September 2020.
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Pretty darn good! I, unfortunately, have to agree with the other comments regarding the sauce being way too thin. Thankfully, I only used about 1/2 of the recommended chicken stock & let it sit on the stove with the lid on for about 3-5 mins to thicken, & it turned out fine. I cannot imagine how liquidy it would’ve been if I had used the full amount. I also felt that it was a bit bland, so I added some red hatch chili powder for flavour.
I was looking for ways to use up a jar of roasted red peppers & a carton of vegan cream, and came across this recipe. I omitted the parmesan & instead added a smidge of white miso paste for umami, and it was delicious! So easy to throw together, and tasted great with ravioli. I think the sauce would go well with any pasta/grain!
This is very versatile! The sauce is amazingly easy. I added red pepper flakes for a little heat and the serve over Linguini Noodles topped with Sautéed Scallops. Don’t get me wrong, I also love it with the Tortellini too! Like I said versatile. Many ways to use the sauce!
This was Fantastic!!
This sauce is great! We used a package of Costco spinach and cheese ravioli so omitted the spinach in the sauce itself. It did make a bit too much sauce but I think it’s good on plain pasta too.
This tasted great, but the sauce was super thin. Next time I’ll omit the chicken stock and just add some chicken bullion to the pepper puree.
Definite keeper. I had ravioli so used those. Makes a lot of sauce so if you need to stretch it you could add more ravs/tortellini.
I had a big “haul” from the garden & made this recipe. This was an amazing sauce- we all love it!
Unfortunately, I only had penne pasta on hand. (I can imagine it would have really been exceptional with the tortellini!)
The 2nd time I made it, I threw in some roasted tomatoes, garlic, onions.
Still so good!
Thanks for a great recipe!
So delicious and easy to put together
This is in our regular rotation. If we don’t have spinach, we add peas. Still tastes delicious. I half the sauce for a 10 oz bag of tortellini and it’s plenty.
this sauce turned out soooo thin. is it supposed to be?
So delicious! I’ve never roasted red peppers before and I was amazed how easy it was and there wasn’t a drop of this dish left after dinner. All five of us loved it!!
Absolutely delicious!!
absolutely delicious! I sauteed some shrimp in the butter and onion and then kept it to the side while I made the sauce. Added the shrimp back in at the end and also added a little bit of red pepper flakes – one of my favorite recipes I’ve ever made!
Is the chicken stock homemade or store bought? Or you can use any of the two?
Use either. Here’s my homemade chicken stock recipe: https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/homemade-chicken-broth-how-to-get-the-most-from-your-rotisserie-chicken/
Where does the heavy whipping cream come in I don’t see it anywhere in the recipe
In step 5 when it says stir in cream.
I have leftover jarred roasted red pepper strips I need to use. Can I substitute those and if so how much do I use?
This is one of our new favorite recipes.
It was delicious!
I added nutmeg for some sweetness
How can I make this vegetarian?
Use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth.
I tried it w Faffalle. Good choice but frankly I had left over sauce I added some cauliflower and a few fresh mozzarella roiled into balls and with a rustic bread toast served the gravy as soup!
Very Good. My husband wants to try it with fettuccine noodles and shrimp.
I LOVE that idea! Happy you liked it 🙂 Thanks so much for coming back to comment!
The red pepper sauce is amazing!
Just made this for Christmas Eve dinner–YUM! I doubled the amount of pasta and spinach though. The amount of sauce was a bit overwhelming but still was delicious with twice the tortellini. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
This looks delicious! I want to try the roasted red pepper sauce with zucchini noodles. Is it possible to make the sauce ahead of time and store in the fridge?