If you’ve been dissatisfied by overly wet, bland ratatouille, this recipe will change your opinion on this classic French Provençal dish.
A Viral Recipe
Our ratatouille pasta recipe was one of the first Woks of Life recipes to go viral. Ironically, it was not a Chinese recipe that helped our blog get off the ground and start building an audience! Here are the original photos that started it all: This is especially validating, because we are often pigeon-holed into doing a certain type of cooking, when our family truly enjoys a wide range of cuisines. These are the types of recipes that we turn to again and again, and they don’t always have to fit into the “box” that others might have mentally constructed for us. Despite our name, we don’t all sit around eating dumplings and tofu all the time! (If you thought that, well…there is a lot of tofu on this website. But our non-Chinese recipes are great too!) Regardless of who’s making it, this Ratatouille Pasta is just an incredibly tasty dish. It will always hold a special place in our hearts, because it was the first time it felt like our little multigenerational recipe blog started to gain some traction. We’ve refreshed it with some new photos (and a VIDEO!), but the recipe itself hasn’t changed.
Video: How to Make Ratatouille Pasta
Think You Don’t Like Ratatouille? We’ve Been There.
For a long time, Ratatouille was a big fat fail in this house. Undercooked, overcooked, and lacking in flavor, there was no good ratatouille recipe to be found. The usual reaction it elicited from everyone was something more or less along the lines of, “eh…” Which is so wrong because that Anton Ego guy like, totally went crazy for it, and even a rat can make it apparently, so we didn’t know what that was about. No matter what recipe we tried, we always somehow ended up with either a sloppy undercooked mess of gummy eggplant and sad zucchini that made you want to cry with frustration…or a cooked through, but relatively flavorless concoction. In any case, I was ruined for ratatouille for a long time: “Hey, what do you want for dinner?” “I dunno.” “We have some zucchini and eggplant. We could make ra–“ “Don’t say it.” “–tatoutille.” points finger toward the door “Get out.” Well, ahem, that all changed when we figured out that roasting the vegetables make all the difference. My dad and I double-teamed on this Roasted Ratatouille Pasta, and it was so delicious, we had to share it with you all.
A Better Ratatouille
The secret to this ratatouille recipe is roasting the tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, and onion all together rather than cooking everything in a pot. AND quality produce. We used cherry tomatoes here, because when they roast, they get all wrinkly and sweet and bursting with tomatoey flavor. They also tend to be sweeter all-year-round when compared to larger tomatoes. We also added sun-dried tomatoes and tomato paste to really intensify those flavors. Toss spaghetti with the ratatouille, fresh herbs, and parmesan, and it’s pretty amazing. Since we first published this recipe in 2014 (10 years ago, wowie), many of our readers have tried it at home and loved it. For another throwback, check out or Soy Sauce Butter Pasta with Shrimp and Shiitakes. For now though, let’s get to the recipe:
Ratatouille Pasta Recipe Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400°F/200°C. In a large mixing bowl, make the seasoning mixture by combining the onion, garlic, tomato paste, sun-dried tomatoes, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, dried thyme, dried basil, and olive oil.
Add the cherry tomatoes, diced zucchini, and diced eggplant, and toss until everything is well coated. The eggplant and zucchini should be diced in about the same size as the tomatoes. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Spread the vegetables evenly on the pan. Everything should be in one layer! Roast in the oven for 45 minutes, stirring the vegetables once halfway through baking. You want everything to be super soft. Falling apart. And wrinkly. …the vegetables. Ha. When the vegetables are almost done cooking, bring a pot of salted water to a boil, and cook your spaghetti according to package instructions until al dente. Chop up your herbs and grate the parmesan. Toss the pasta with the roasted ratatouille, fresh basil, and parsley. (Add a little of the pasta cooking water to loosen the sauce if necessary.) Serve with grated parmesan, and enjoy!
