Blue cheese pasta with a crispy golden sage and garlic breadcrumb topping, a delicious, quick and stupidly simple vegetarian dish.
I usually use fettuccini or tagliatelle for this recipe, but it would work equally well with anything from spaghetti to penne, and it cooks in under 30 minutes!
Pasta with a Creamy Stilton Cheese Sauce
This simple blue cheese pasta recipe is a glorious and quick pasta dinner that uses Stilton, a quintessentially British cheese.
It is not featured here very often, as I have spent most of my life since starting this site living outside of the UK, but it does make an appearance in my broccoli and stilton soup and a blue cheese gnocchi recipe.
It is one of the boldest blue cheeses when it comes to flavour, and it is sublime. If you are outside of the UK and struggle to get Stilton, scroll down a little; I have some other options in my FAQ section.
It forms the base of a very simple cheesy sauce made from shallots, garlic, wine, Stilton, and creme fraiche.
Then aside from pasta, this recipe gets a crispy crumb coating that very much takes influence from my sea bream fillet with a lemon & parsley crumb.
However, this recipe runs with sage and garlic, both flavours that are particularly good with blue cheese.
Oh yeah, and all this can be yours in around 20-25 minutes... what are you waiting for?
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use a different type of blue cheese?
Yes, absolutely, Stilton is a personal favourite, but I've made this recipe with many different types of blue cheese.
Italian Gorgonzola is a nice place to start, then French Roquefort Cheese, which is a little more acidic than Gorgonzola.
Bleu d'Auvergne is a great blue cheese for those who think that they do not like blue cheese. It features a different "culture", and it has a very different, almost nutty, flavour.
Finally, Danish blue is probably the cheapest option and one that is often maligned. It has a subtler flavour when compared to the others on this list, which makes this pasta recipe a little more "family" friendly.
What pasta should I use?
This recipe is pictured here made with fettuccini, but the creamy, cheesy sauce is really versatile, and it works well with everything from spaghetti to rigatoni.
Can I use cream rather than creme fraiche?
Yes, although I personally prefer the slightly lighter and more tart flavour offered by creme fraiche in this recipe.
Creme fraiche really is very special, and it stars in other pasta sauces like my ham and mushroom tagliatelle and canned salmon pasta.
What white wine should I use?
The most important rule when it comes to cooking with booze is that you should make sure that you are prepared to drink it!
Other than that, any dry white wine is perfectly fine for this Stilton pasta recipe.
Can I prepare this in advance?
This dish does not reheat particularly well, but you can make the sage crumb in advance. It will store for 7-10 days if stored correctly.
You can also make it in bulk and sprinkle it on everything from soups and pasta dishes to chicken and pork recipes.
Serving Suggestions
I tend to keep the sides for my Stilton blue cheese pasta recipe really simple.
They would typically involve bread, some simply warmed ciabatta or focaccia, which are great at mopping up any leftover creamy stilton sauce.
This recipe goes pretty strong with garlic, but there is always room for a little more... right?
This is glorious with a little garlic baguette or some cheesy garlic bread.
Personally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of serving pasta with salad, but I am aware many folks are. If you are one of them, then a simple green side salad would work well.
Equipment Used
I only mention specific equipment brands if I think they may make a material difference to a recipe. But if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section below the recipe.
- Hob/stovetop.
- 20cm or 8" (Minimum) saucepan.
- 20cm or 8" (Minimum) frying pan.
- 24cm or 10" (Minimum) frying pan.
- Chopping board.
- Sharp kitchen knife.
- A combination of weighing scales, a measuring jug, measuring cups and spoons.
- Sieve or colander.
Blue Cheese Pasta Recipe with Stilton
Ingredients
- 200 g Dried Pasta 7oz
- 1 Small-Medium Echalion or Banana Shallot 35g
- 6 Garlic Cloves
- 125 ml Dry White Wine ½ Cup
- 50 g Creme Fraiche 3 tablespoon
- 100 g Stilton 1 Cup (other blue cheeses work fine)
- 12 Sage Leaves
- 15 g Panko Breadcrumbs ¼ Cup
- 50 g Butter 3 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon
- Salt (for boiling pasta)
Instructions
- PASTA PAN:Bring a medium to large (at least 24cm or 12") pan of water to a boil and season it generously with salt (1 tablespoon of salt for every 4 litres of water).
- Peel the shallot and dice it as finely as you can.
- Peel the garlic, bash it with the side of a knife and then chop it as finely as you can.
- Crumble the blue cheese.
- Shred the sage leaves into strips 2-3mm (⅛") thick.
- PASTA PAN:Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook it for as long as the instructions say on the packet (8-12 minutes, depending on type).
- PAN 1: Heat a 20cm or 8" frying pan over a medium heat, add half of the butter and when it begins to foam, add half of the garlic and sage leaves and cook for 60 seconds.
- PAN 2: Add the shallots and garlic to the pan for the sauce and cook for 2 minutes without adding any colour. If the shallots and garlic begin to go brown, reduce the heat a little.DO THIS AS SOON AS YOU HAVE STARTED THE STEP ABOVE
- PAN 1: After the garlic and sage have had 60 seconds, pour the breadcrumbs into the sage and garlic and cook until golden, stirring regularly to avoid burning. This should take 4-5 minutes, then remove and set aside.
- PAN 2: Turn the heat under the pan for the sauce to high, pour in the wine and reduce it by half.
- PAN 2: Add the creme fraiche and blue cheese and stir until the blue cheese melts. Then reduce the heat to low and allow to simmer until the pasta is cooked; this will help thicken the sauce.
- PASTA PAN: Drain the pasta, reserving 75-125ml (⅓-½ cup) of the cooking liquid.
- PAN 2: Add the pasta to the sauce and toss to coat, adding as much cooking liquid as needed to form a nice coating on the pasta.
- Serve sprinkled with breadcrumbs.
Norbert Edmund Onaitis
Saturday 15th of May 2021
FYI, I'm gonna make this. How could this possibly be improved? No way! Garlic, Sage, Blue Cheese! The only thing that I can think of is a little freshly ground white pepper.
Norbert Edmund Onaitis
Saturday 15th of May 2021
Step 2 is confusing. "Slice the garlic cloves and roll up the sage leaves and slice them." OK, it's apparent the you mean that tho is two separate operations. Syntax, syntax, syntax.
Brian Jones
Sunday 16th of May 2021
Hi Norbert...
No one starts a website like this fully formed and our older content is quite often clumsily presented. Most food bloggers start off as passionate cooks, the whole website running and writing thing is something we learn as we progress. Generally speaking we are happy to have areas of improvement flagged with us so long as it is done politely and appropriately.
My style is now to outline each and ever step for a recipe, but it took a number of years of experimenting with presenting recipe information to get there. As a result I have much to catch up on, but I am slowly going through and changing old recipes, but I have a few ;)
Thanks
Brian
Bintu | Recipes From A Pantry
Tuesday 29th of January 2019
Garlic is one of my favourite flavours. This sounds like such a tasty and flavourful dish with the blue cheese and sage too - I will have to try it out for myself!
Cristie | Little Big H
Tuesday 29th of January 2019
Oh wow that looks amazing. I love the flavour combination of garlic, blue cheese and sage. Can't wait to try this recipe.
Mary Bostow
Tuesday 29th of January 2019
Mmm, this looks so good. My family loves spaghetti, this is a fun way to enjoy it. Bookmarking this, thanks!