In early 2020, Gigi Hadid posted a recipe for spicy vodka pasta sauce on her Instagram Stories, and I was instantly inspired. Pasta is one of my all-time favorite dinners, and considering the fact that I eat it in some form at least two or three nights a week (don't judge me), I consider myself a pro when it comes to cooking delicious sauces.
But I have to admit, for a long time, I hadn't tried a spicy vodka pasta sauce before. At the end of 2019, I finally paid a visit to Carbone in New York City, a traditional Italian restaurant that serves a spicy vodka rigatoni dish costing a cool $32. It's worth every penny — hands down, one of the top five pasta dishes I've had in my life. I never thought I'd be able to re-create it at home, and I certainly never thought it'd be Gigi Hadid who helped me get one step closer to that dream. So when I saw Gigi's step-by-step spicy vodka pasta recipe (which seemed easy enough) on her Instagram Stories, I knew I had to give it a go.
Fortunately, I had most of the ingredients in my kitchen already, and after forcing my boyfriend to go to the store to buy a box of penne pasta (the closest we could get to rigatoni), I was ready to go. I followed Gigi's vodka pasta sauce recipe to the letter, and the result was so delicious — and definitely reminiscent of the Carbone classic. Of course, even I have to admit nothing will come truly close to sitting in one of Carbone's plush leather booths with a fork in one hand and a Negroni in the other, but eating my spicy vodka pasta on the couch in my London flat while doing a pub quiz with my friends over Zoom came pretty close.
Ahead, see how I re-created Gigi Hadid's spicy rigatoni pasta at home.
