Brown Butter Pasta with Asparagus and Bacon | Land O'Lakes

For this recipe, I came up with a fun spring side dish…and who doesn’t love pasta, right? And brown butter? I’m totally obsessed. Seriously. With asparagus and green onions, this feels like spring! You can sub out any vegetables, too. To make this a complete meal, serve the pasta with some grilled chicken.

The bacon is totally optional. Of course, to make this dish vegetarian, just omit the bacon.

The first couple of things I do for this recipe are cook the bacon in the microwave and start a pot of salted water and bring it to a boil.

Next, prep the garlic, green onions and asparagus.

Melt one half stick of Land O Lakes^® Butter with Olive Oil & Sea Salt in a nonstick skillet. This is perfect for a brown butter sauce because of the natural flavor enhancement of the sea salt and olive oil. Plus, the half sticks make measuring so easy. Once it melts, set your timer for 5 minutes. That’s about the amount of time it takes to brown.

When you see brown particles in your pan, you have brown butter! Turn the heat off and add the garlic and mix. Cook for about 30 seconds (you don’t want to burn the garlic!)

There’s the garlic brown butter all done.

Add back 1 tablespoon of brown butter to the pan and cook the asparagus for 2 minutes.

Add back the rest of the brown butter and add heavy cream. You need just a little bit for this recipe.

All ready to go into the pasta.

Mix really well. And serve with green onions and bacon.

It’s such a simple side dish and tastes amazing! I can’t wait to make this for my Bunko friends.

Brown Butter Pasta with Asparagus & Bacon Recipe

YIELD: Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients

4 slices cooked bacon, chopped (optional)
12 ounces uncooked bowtie pasta
1 half stick Land O Lakes^® Butter with Olive Oil & Sea Salt (1/4 cup)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 pound asparagus, washed, trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces
1 tablespoon heavy cream
2 green onions, sliced

Directions

Cook bacon and chop up, if using. Bring a pot of water with plenty of salt to a boil. Cook pasta according to instructions on the package. Drain pasta and add back to pot.

While the water is boiling, add butter to a nonstick skillet and cook on medium heat until browned, about 5 to 6 minutes. Once the butter is browned, working quickly, turn heat off and add garlic. Cook for 30 seconds. Remove butter and garlic and place in a clean bowl. Set aside.

Add 1 tablespoon browned butter back to the skillet and turn heat to medium. Add asparagus and cook for 2 minutes. Add heavy cream to pan along with remaining brown butter. Cook for 2 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Pour asparagus and butter mixture over pasta in large pot.

Mix pasta together. Serve with green onions and bacon (optional).

Disclosure: The Little Kitchen has partnered with Land O’Lakes for an exclusive endorsement of Land O Lakes^® Butter for their Kitchen Conversation blogger program. This blog post is sponsored by Land O’Lakes.