Jennifer Garner Shared This 5-Ingredient Pasta That's My New Weeknight Favorite

It's the perfect zesty, springtime dinner!

Have you ever watched a show or read a book where the characters are eating a delicious meal and you think “Gosh, I wish I had that recipe?” Normally, you just have to go through life knowing you’ll never get to try Ted Lasso’s biscuits or Ross Geller’s turkey sandwich with a moist maker because the recipe doesn’t actually exist.

But, thanks to Jennifer Garner and her "Pretend Cooking Show", we won’t have to do that with the scrumptious-sounding Brown Butter & Sage Pasta from her new show “The Last Thing He Told Me” on Apple TV+.

In the show, and in the novel written by Laura Dave, Garner’s character Hannah attempts to recreate a pasta recipe from her step-daughter Bailey’s favorite restaurant, Poggio Trattoria. Hannah is unsuccessful in recreating the recipe, as she burns the pasta, and much to her dismay, Bailey doesn’t want to eat it anyway—so she’s left with “enough burnt pasta to feed a family of ten.”

Recently, Garner took to Instagram to share the five-ingredient recipe from the show—and, unlike Hannah, she made it perfectly without any mishaps.

Because Poggio Trattoria is a real restaurant in Sausalito, California (where the story takes place), Garner says the pasta is inspired by the restaurant. It doesn’t seem to be a menu item now, but whether it was offered on Poggio’s menu in the past or not is unclear.

When I read the novel last summer, I didn’t think much of the pasta because I was so engrossed in the mind-bending thriller. However, when I saw the cheesy, brown butter pasta on Garner’s Instagram, it stopped me in my tracks—and I knew I had to make it.

How to Make "The Last Thing He Told Me" Brown Butter & Sage Pasta

The Brown Butter & Sage Pasta is incredibly easy to make with just five ingredients: linguine, butter, fresh sage leaves, lemon, and Parmesan cheese—plus some salt and pepper at the end, which, admittedly, I forgot to add, but I didn’t even notice.

The sage lightly flavors the butter while it’s browning, so you get an earthy, nutty flavor. Even though the sage leaves crisped up and got pretty small, I did treat them like bay leaves and take them out of the butter because that’s what it looked like Garner did—and I didn’t really want to bite into the leaves anyway.

With only lemon, butter, and cheese, the pasta itself is quite light but incredibly flavorful. It’s zesty, cheesy, and buttery—just the way I want my springtime pasta to be. Plus, it was ready in only about 15 minutes, so you can’t ask for much else on a busy weeknight.

While “The Last Thing He Told Me’s” Bailey didn’t like the pasta, this Bailey certainly did—enough that I’ll be adding it to my springtime dinner rotation this month. Thank goodness for Garner’s “Pretend Cooking Show” fueling my recipe collection yet again!