Sophia Loren's Favorite Spaghetti Recipe Makes Lemons The Star

Movie star Sophia Loren was never shy about her appreciation for good food. "Everything you see I owe to spaghetti," the Italian actress once gushed. From spaghetti sauce to chicken cacciatore, Loren assembled some of her favorite dishes into a cookbook meant for like-minded lovers of pasta and recipes inspired by Italian cuisine. One of the included dishes, a lemon pasta recipe known as Spaghetti al Limone, takes no shortcuts with flavor by incorporating butter, heavy cream, and cheese to create a lemony dish almost as tempting as a trip to the Italian Riviera. 

The best part of Loren's lemony spaghetti is that this decadent dish doesn't require exceptional culinary skills to put together. Al dente pasta noodles are added to a simmering sauce made with butter, garlic, cream, and lemons before being tossed together with salt and pepper, plated, and topped with sprinkles of grated Parmesan cheese. In just fifteen minutes, this beauty of a meal can be set atop an alfresco dining table or enjoyed in front of a roaring winter fire.

Once you have mastered Loren's basic recipe, you can add your own spin to the dish with flavors and textures meant just for your palate. Add red pepper flakes, sprinkles of paprika, toasted walnuts, or chopped pieces of basil plucked fresh from your garden to the recipe. Fans of lemon may want to add an extra garnish of lemon zest to the top of plated noodles or use lemon-flavored salts to bring an extra zip to heaping servings of pasta. 

Experiment with making this simple recipe with different kinds of pasta noodles or pair your preferred proteins, like grilled salmon, crispy tofu, or breaded chicken, with the dish's lemony, creamy flavors. Enjoy your zingy pasta with crisp white wines like Pinot Grigio and Chablis, or pop open a bottle of Assyrtiko for a mouth-watering meal that is sure to satisfy even the most picky eaters in your kitchen. We can thank Loren for a dish that looks as beautiful as it tastes.