I Tried Nigella Lawson's 15-Minute Tuna Lemon Pasta

I’ll be honest: normally, I hate the idea of tuna with pasta. But when Nigella Lawson (who admits she used to dislike the canned stuff too) said her “instant pasta sauce” converted her, I listened up.

After all, I’ve already tried (and loved) her “old-fashioned” chocolate cake, perfect scones, and tiramisu.

Nigella claims the delicious concoction was so good, it “is a regular fixture in my eating diary.”

And as someone whose existing midweek meal rotation was beginning to feel a little tired, I figured I’d put her claim ― that it’ll soon become a go-to in my kitchen, too ― to the test.

The ingredients are reassuringly basic

To be honest, I partly took on this recipe because I had to get rid of some unused tuna. Mine was in brine, while Nigella’s was housed in more flavourful oil; I made up the difference by subbing plain chilli flakes for chilli flakes in oil.

The instructions were simple. Boil your pasta, the chef advised, and while that’s cooking, mix the zest and juice of a lemon with a grated or crushed garlic clove and mash it with a can or two of tuna.

Fork chopped spring onions (you can see how desperate my wilting ones were to be used) into the mix together with chilli and flaky salt to taste.

Once that’s done, chuck in a glug of olive oil.

Reserve some pasta water, drain the spaghetti, and mix the al dente noodles into the tuna mix with some rocket (I’m sure other greens will do).

The mixture actually did come together in under 15 minutes, which ― though Nigella never claimed this was the case ― is rare for supposedly “quick and easy” meals.

It was mercifully mess-free, too. I only had to clean a mixing bowl, chopping board, knife, and pan afterwards.

The tuna, lemon juice, chilli, rocket, olive oil, salt, and spring onion mix on the left: mixed in with pasta and rocket on the right

So… how did it taste?

I am never going back. This is one of my favourite dinners of all time.

The sharp lemon and zingy chilli dignify the tuna with a meaty depth; the lemon and rocket are sunny, peppery shortcuts to a light, summery pasta.

The texture’s great too ― neither too slick nor too dry and clingy. It’s perfect for spring (I reckon a nice burst of sweet pea or petit pois would be lovely in here as well).

In short, Nigella’s right; this has definitely made its way into my meal rotation.