{"id":54246,"date":"2020-02-06T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.freshdirect.com\/?p=54246"},"modified":"2026-04-15T12:44:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T16:44:44","slug":"valentines-day-pasta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.freshdirect.com\/blog\/valentines-day-pasta\/","title":{"rendered":"Valentine\u2019s Day Pasta with a Pink Surprise!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pink
\nPlanning on impressing your boo this Valentine\u2019s Day<\/a> with a home-cooked dinner for two? Go you! In our book, a meal cooked with love is way<\/em> more alluring than reservations at a restaurant booked solid with dozens of other couples all clamoring for a moment of romance.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve yet to pick a recipe for the occasion, let us suggest one that is magnificently on-theme: pink pasta! It comes to us courtesy of FreshDirect’s very own food stylist, Emerald. You don\u2019t need any special ingredients, mainly just some good fresh pasta and beets for that stunning color. Learn how to make it below!<\/p>\n

Shop all Valentine\u2019s Day picks on FreshDirect<\/a><\/h2>\n
\n

Pink Pasta with Beets<\/h1>\n

What You\u2019ll Need:<\/h3>\n

3 medium red beets<\/a>, trimmed and peeled
\n2 tablespoons + \u00bc cup olive oil
\n\u00bd cup boiling water, plus more for cooking pasta
\n1 lemon
\n4 ounces ricotta cheese<\/a>
\nSalt and pepper
\n10 ounces thick fresh pasta noodles<\/a>, such as bucatini<\/a> or fettucine
\nA few tablespoons walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped
\n2 tablespoons julienned basil leaves
\nFinely-grated Parmesan cheese<\/a>, for garnish.<\/p>\n

What to Do:<\/h3>\n

Take your prepped beets and shred them in a food processor fitted with a shredding blade, or grate them on the large holes of a box grater. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the shredded beets and cook, tossing occasionally, until they begin to soften, 4-5 minutes. Pour in \u00bd c boiling water and cook until mostly evaporated and beets are very soft, 3-5 minutes more.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, take the lemon and using a vegetable peeler, peel off two 2-inch-long strips of zest. Slice very thinly lengthwise into a julienne and set aside. Finely zest the remainder of the lemon peel into a small bowl. Lastly, halve the lemon and squeeze out the juice into another bowl.<\/p>\n

Transfer the fully-cooked beets to a food processor or blender and add \u00bc c olive oil and process into a smooth paste. Add the ricotta, finely-zested lemon peel, and a pinch of salt. Process again until smooth.<\/p>\n

Bring a pot of heavily-salted water to a boil and cook fresh pasta according to package instructions. Before draining, reserve about a cup of pasta cooking water.<\/p>\n

Transfer the cooked pasta, about \u00be of the beet mixture, lemon juice, and a splash of pasta water to your empty pan and toss to combine. Add more of the beet mixture and\/or pasta water as needed to coat the noodles in a loose sauce.<\/p>\n

Divide pasta between two plates. Garnish with walnuts, basil leaves, julienned lemon peel, a bit of grated Parmesan, and some freshly-ground pepper.<\/p>\n

\n

 
\n\"Valentine's
\nWould you like some wine with that? Browse Valentine\u2019s Day bubbly and more from FreshDirect Wines & Spirits.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Get more dinner for two ideas on the FreshDirect website. <\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Planning on impressing your boo this Valentine\u2019s Day with a home-cooked dinner for two? Go you! In our book, a meal cooked with love is way more alluring than reservations at a restaurant booked solid with dozens of other couples all clamoring for a moment of romance. If you\u2019ve yet to pick a recipe for the occasion, let us suggest one that is magnificently on-theme: pink pasta! It comes to us courtesy of FreshDirect’s very own food stylist, Emerald. You don\u2019t need any special ingredients, mainly just some good fresh pasta and beets for that stunning color. Learn how to make it below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69275,"featured_media":54247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2736,2732,3254],"tags":[2927,3256,561],"class_list":["post-54246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dinner-recipes-2","category-recipes","category-valentines-day","tag-beets","tag-dinner-for-two","tag-pasta"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freshdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freshdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freshdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freshdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freshdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54246"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.freshdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54264,"href":"https:\/\/www.freshdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54246\/revisions\/54264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freshdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freshdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freshdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freshdirect.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}