Incredibly easy to make, aromatic garlic butter noodles with Parmesan.
Buttered noodles with garlic and Parmesan

These garlic butter noodles are incredible. If you never had them, you should make them as soon as possible. Today, actually, they are that good!
So, a buttered noodles and Parmesan recipe was not something I have ever eaten or even consider making not long ago. I don't know why it had never occurred to me that you could make such a simple dish, I mean, rice with butter are quite a regular children meal, so why not butter noodles?
It all changed not long ago. I saw a picture somewhere online (Pinterest, I suppose) and my mouth started watering immediately. It took me less than a week to actually get to cooking these buttered noodles with garlic, which is saying a lot considering how long my cooking list is...
This Parmesan noodles became an instant classic in our house, both kids devoured everything and they keep asking me to cook them again regularly.
Ingredients
- These butter garlic noodles are a simple dish using basic and cheap ingredients.
- You can use any sort of noodles you like: spaghetti, linguine, tagliatelle, shorter noodles...
- Otherwise, what you need is good quality butter, lots of garlic and some Parmesan.
- You can use either salted or unsalted butter. If you use salted butter, adjust the taste accordingly at the end of the cooking process.
- I always recommend using freshly grated Parmesan, I cannot stand the already grated sort, which is full of preservatives and tastes nothing like real Parmesan.
- If you want to make this garlic butter sauce for pasta vegetarian, choose a vegetarian hard cheese instead.
How to make?
- Start by cooking the pasta.
- While the pasta cooks, make the sauce.
- Press or grate the garlic cloves.
- Slowly melt the butter in a smaller saucepan, stir often and give it about 3 minutes.
- Add the grated garlic cloves and stir for about 2 minutes until they are golden. It is very important to stand by the pan during this time and keep stirring, the garlic should only get golden and not too brown. If it gets too much color, it will get rather bitter.
- Add the salt, pepper and some chili flakes to taste, the garlic butter sauce for pasta should get slightly frothy by now. Remove from the heat.
- Drain the noodles, place back in the pot and mix them with the garlic butter sauce immediately.
- Add the freshly grated Parmesan, sprinkle with some parsley (if desired) and serve immediately with a green salad.
- Don't be tempted to add the Parmesan directly to the butter sauce. I did that once and all the cheese clumped into a ball. I had to throw it all away and start again... Annoying!
More noodles?
Spinach Peanut Butter Noodles (Soy Sauce Noodles)
Napa Cabbage Salad with Ramen Noodles
Cabbage Noodles with Sour Cream
Noodles with Coconut Turmeric Sauce
Garlic Butter Noodles with Parmesan
Ingredients
- 500 g/ 1.1 lbs pasta tagliatelle, spaghetti, linguine, etc
- 85 g/ 3 oz/ ⅓ cup + 1 teaspoon butter See note
- 6 garlic cloves
- ½ teaspoon chili flakes more or less to taste
- 115 g/ 4 oz/ ¾ cup freshly grated Parmesan
- 1 teaspoon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- some chopped parsley
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add salt and the pasta. Cook according to the packet's instructions.
- While the pasta cooks make the garlic butter sauce.
- Place the cubed butter in a small saucepan. Melt slowly, stirring often. Let it simmer for about 3 minutes.
- In the meantime grate the Parmesan.
- Grate the garlic. Add it to the butter and let cook for about 2 minutes while stirring very often. The garlic should get golden. Keep an eye on it, it should not get too dark.
- Add the salt. Start with 1 teaspoon and add more after mixing the noodles with the butter sauce. You will probably need some more if you used unsalted butter.
- Add pepper and some chili flakes to taste.
- Stir well, the butter should start to get a little frothy and rather brown by now. Remove from the heat.
- Drain the noodles and mix them immediately with the garlic butter sauce.
- Add the grated Parmesan to the noodles as well.
- Adjust the taste with more salt and pepper, if necessary.
- Sprinkle with some chopped parsley, if desired, and serve immediately with a green salad.
angiesrecipes says
Garlic, butter and Parm....the noodle has got to be GOOD!
allie @ Through Her Looking Glass says
Oh my, this is so delicious and simple to make!!! I love that your kids love it Adina. I can almost smell the delicious garlic butter now.... Good tip wo wait on adding the cheese to the butter, it would be just my luck to do that. Have a great week!
Sissi says
Happy New Year, Adina! Thank you for reminding me how much I love simple Italian pasta dishes.... This delicious-looking butter pasta reminds me of many of them.
Karen (Back Road Journal) says
Sometimes the simplest of dishes like this are forgotten about. I like to serve these noodles as a side with chicken marsala.
Bryan says
This recipe looks delicious! It seems like there so much flavor in these noodles haha I can't wait to give this a try, thank you
Adina says
Thank you, Bryan.
mjskitchen says
You're killing me tonight Adina! I've missed so many good recipes and this one has me hungry all over again. Simple pasta dish with lots and lots of flavor - the best kind!
Leslie says
I followed the directions with exact measurements and it was to dry for my taste. I added some chicken stock and heavy cream. This came out creamier. Next time I will try half and half to make it a little lighter.