Spaghetti with Garlicky Yogurt Sauce Recipe

Cacio e pepe is delicious and all, but it gets old after the hundredth time. Next time you’re behind on dinner and need pasta in a pinch, consider the spaghetti with garlicky yogurt sauce from Yumna Jawad’s new cookbook, The Feel Good Foodie Cookbook.

“Macarona bi laban, an Arabic dish of cooked pasta tossed in a glossy, garlicky yogurt sauce, was kind of like our version of pasta Alfredo growing up,” Jawad writes. “Some cooks pour the cold sauce right over the cooked pasta, but I like to warm everything up a bit in the pot before serving—it mellows out the minced raw garlic and creates a silky-smooth texture that clings to the pasta perfectly.”

You can substitute Greek yogurt for plain if you must, but the latter will give you the ultimate creamy texture. The sauce is complemented by nutty tahini and, if you want to take the extra step, hashweh, a spiced, herbed Lebanese stuffing of rice, meat and nuts.

^{Excerpted from THE FEEL GOOD FOODIE COOKBOOK by Yumna Jawad. Copyright © 2024 by Yumna Jawad. Used by permission of Rodale Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.}