Our Best Fusilli Pasta Recipe
Our fusilli pasta recipe with tomato sauce —a simple union of onion, butter and basil — is weeknight comfort, with a twist. What’s the twist? Fusilli pasta itself! Shaped like a corkscrew, it will delight your kids and make you happy, too. Much like our Bow Tie Pasta Recipe, Creamy Cavatappi or our Linguine with Lemon Garlic Sauce, this savory, warming vegetarian fusilli recipe is simple on purpose, leaving space to delight in the pasta shape itself. And for even more pasta inspo, our Pasta Round Up has you covered.
Ingredients For Fusilli With Tomato Sauce
San Marzano tomatoes
Salt
Basil
Onion
Italian seasoning
Butter (you can substitute olive oil to make this fusilli recipe vegan and dairy-free)
Red pepper flakes (if your kids are sensitive to spice, just use a little less)
Fusilli pasta. We really love the way fusilli’s corkscrew curves hold onto this richly flavorful tomato sauce, but you could substitute any little pasta shape that you love or have on hand. Rigatoni, cavatappi, Bow Tie Pasta or even ziti would be nice.
Parmesan (this is optional, so if you need the pasta to be vegan, just skip it)
How To Make The Best Fusilli Pasta
Make a simple tomato sauce. Combine the tomatoes, salt, basil, onion, Italian seasoning, butter, and pepper flakes in a big pot. Simmer for about an hour. The tomato sauce takes about an hour to make, but you can do this up to 4 days ahead of time (helloooo, meal preppers!) and store it in the fridge until you’re ready to make your fusilli.
When the sauce is ready, remove the onion (a slotted spoon is really helpful here) and blend the sauce until it’s nice and smooth with your trusty immersion blender.
Cook the fusilli pasta until just al dente in lots of boiling, salted water.
Stop! Don’t drain all the pasta water out — save some to add to the fusilli and sauce.
Toss together the pasta, sauce and a little reserved pasta cooking water — that salty, starchy water is the secret to those restaurant pasta dishes you love so much — and dig in!
How To Store Leftover Fusilli + Tips
To freeze your homemade tomato sauce, cool it completely and store it in zip-top bags in your freezer for up to 6 months. Or you can make it ahead of time and store it in the fridge for up to 4 days.
To make this vegetarian fusilli recipe vegan and dairy free, substitute extra-virgin olive oil in place of the butter, and skip the Parmesan cheese at the end. Because our recipe calls for salted butter in the tomato sauce, just note you may need to add salt (just to taste) to the sauce if you use oil instead of butter.
To make your fusilli pasta perfectly al dente, start tasting for doneness about one minute before the shortest suggested cooking time on the pasta box, especially with fusilli, which always seems to cook quickly. For example, if the pasta box suggests an 8-10 minute cook time, we’d start testing for doneness after 7 minutes.
Simplicity is the beauty of this recipe, but it is nice to round the meal out by serving it with one or two sides. Make a whole Italian feast by serving your fusilli with a big Italian Salad, some gorgeous Broccolini, and warm, crusty Garlic Bread.
More Italian Pasta Recipes To Try
Pasta Night, With A Twist!
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