Pasta with Vodka

This is the original 1980s Italian-American classic that made vodka sauce famous. The vodka isn’t a gimmick. It pulls flavor compounds out of the tomatoes that water and oil can’t, and the alcohol carries those volatile aromatics straight to your nose.

Most of the booze cooks off in the two-minute simmer with butter and red pepper flakes, leaving behind a sharper, brighter tomato note. Cream then rounds the edges and turns the sauce that signature blush pink.

Use puréed Italian plum tomatoes, drained and seeded, for the cleanest sauce. Watery tomatoes thin out the cream and you lose the cling.

Finishing the pasta right in the skillet with the cheese is what binds the whole thing. Drain a touch shy of fully cooked, then let it finish in the sauce so the starch from the pasta tightens everything up into a silky coat.

Kitchen Tips

• Use a noncorrodible skillet, meaning stainless steel, enameled cast iron, or a coated nonstick. Bare aluminum or unseasoned cast iron reacts with the vodka and tomato acid.
• Don’t skip the simmer with vodka and pepper before adding tomatoes. That’s where the alcohol burns off and the chili infuses the fat.
• Pull the pasta about a minute before fully al dente. It finishes cooking in the sauce.
• Add the cheese off direct heat or on low. High heat seizes the Parmigiano into stringy clumps.

Variations

• Swap half-and-half for heavy cream for a richer, more restaurant-style sauce.
• Stir in a handful of crisped pancetta or guanciale for a meatier version.
• Finish with torn fresh basil and a grating of lemon zest for brightness.