Easy lemon pasta recipe with delicious brown butter sauce. This flavorful pasta dish only has 5 ingredients and can be on the table in 30 minutes.
If you'd like more pasta ideas, you should try Pasta Soup, Baked Rigatoni, and Rigatoni and Sausage with Tomato Cream Sauce.

Sometimes I see a recipe like this lemon pasta and I have to make it immediately. I think it was the lemon zest and browned butter that caught my attention here.
I love both of those flavors immensely and to think of them both in an easy pasta with lemon butter sauce recipe, I was sold.
You guys, I was right. This is a recipe you need to make ASAP. So easy and so ridiculously delicious. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it.
This is also a great pasta dish for those looking for lemon pasta without cream.
Ingredients you will need:
- 1 lb uncooked rigatoni pasta
- fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- ½ cup salted butter (or unsalted with an add on of ¼ tsp sea salt)
- 1 large lemon, zested and juiced
- 1 oz freshly grated parmesan
How to make Lemon Pasta?
- Cook rigatoni to almost al dente.
- While rigatoni is cooking, in a large saute pan, brown the butter (cook until it starts to brown and foam). Add in lemon zest and freshly ground pepper to browned butter.
- Remove 1 cup of starchy water from pasta pot and add to browned butter sauce. Continue to cook and reduce sauce until it has thickened slightly. Stir in lemon juice and parmesan cheese until combined.
- Strain pasta. Add pasta to skillet with sauce and stir to combine. Serve and Enjoy!
Tips for this delicious pasta dish:
- Freshly shredded parmesan kicks this dish up a notch. I've made the dish both ways though, and prepared parmesan is super yummy too.
- You can add a protein to create a full dinner. Excellent choices would be: lemon pasta with chicken, lemon pasta with shrimp or salmon.
- For a vegetarian option, try it with marinated tofu.
- I have rigatoni as the pasta of choice, but you can really use any thicker type cut of pasta like bucatini.
Hope you enjoy this dish as much as we did!
Recipe

Lemon Pasta with Browned Butter Sauce
Easy lemon pasta recipe with delicious brown butter sauce. This flavorful pasta dish only has 5 ingredients and can be on the table in 30 minutes.
Ingredients
- 1 lb uncooked rigatoni noodles
- fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- ½ cup salted butter (or unsalted butter with extra ¼ tsp sea salt)
- 1 large lemon, zested and juiced
- 1 oz freshly grated parmesan
Instructions
-
Pour the pasta in boiling water. Add a couple shakes of salt to water. Start browning butter at the same time you add the pasta to the boiling water. Cook the butter over medium high heat until it starts to foam and the mixture browns. Add in the lemon zest and a few twists of freshly ground pepper to the browned butter. Cook the pasta until 2 minutes from al dente.
-
Remove 1 cup of the starchy water from the pasta pot and add it to the browned butter mixture and continue to cook for a few minutes for it to reduce until it has thickened slightly. At this point, stir in the freshly squeezed lemon juice and parmesan cheese, until combined.
-
Strain the pasta and add to the browned butter mixture in the large saute pan. Stir for a few minutes until the pasta is evenly covered with the sauce.
-
Serve with a few more twists of freshly ground pepper and parmesan cheese. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes
Adapted from Gimme Some Oven
Leave a Reply