Ñora Pepper Paste Will Give Your Pasta Sauce An Even Deeper Flavor

If you've been looking for a way to upgrade your homemade pasta recipes, then you need to know about ñora pepper paste. It's made from ñora peppers, which hail from Bolivia and Peru but are closely associated with Spanish cooking. The paste has a rich depth of flavor — it has a lot of sweetness, but with an earthiness to balance it out. Most jars of ñora pepper paste consist of just the peppers (which have been blended to transform it into the paste consistency) and citric acid (as a preserving agent). In other words, the paste is full of the ñora pepper flavor, without any other ingredients detracting from the rich and prominent taste of the peppers.

Pasta dishes can almost always benefit from integrating new and unique flavors — which is where the ñora pepper paste comes in. Perhaps you want to add an unexpected spin on a classic dish, like spaghetti pomodoro. Or, maybe you want to add some sweetness to penne arrabiata to balance out the spiciness. Another option is to use the ñora peppers to replace bell peppers in a pasta recipe, such as our cheesy gnocchi and roasted pepper bake. Whichever method you have in mind, the paste is the perfect way to implement an exciting earthy sweetness into various pasta dishes.

There are several ways you can add this spicy pepper to pasta dishes. If you don't want to give up the taste of the classic tomato sauce, but rather add a new depth of flavor to it, that's one option. To do this, heat up olive oil in a saucepan, then add your desired amount of ñora pepper paste — perhaps start with a couple tablespoons — then add in the jar of tomato sauce and stir to combine. Use this to switch up, say, a chicken sausage and bell pepper pasta recipe for a blend of pepper flavors or to elevate a classic batch of homemade ravioli.

Or, you can simply combine the ñora pepper paste with the tomato sauce in a blender — this is how you could add red bell peppers to a baked creamy red pepper penne pasta dish. As mentioned, one way to integrate ñora pepper paste is simply to use them as a substitute for any of the dishes that contain roasted red bell peppers and this recipe is the perfect place to start.

Additionally, ñora peppers are sometimes used in a variation of romesco sauce, which is a smoky sauce typically made from roasted bell peppers, nuts, and various seasonings. You can use this recipe for a smoky romesco sauce and integrate the ñora pepper paste either by adding it to the existing ingredients or, again, replacing the bell peppers. Add to your favorite pasta dish.