Recipe: Lemon Caper Brown Butter Ravioli

This ravioli tastes like a pasta you’d order at a fancy Italian restaurant and pay $25 for. If that’s not high enough praise for this recipe, I don’t know what is. Cheese ravioli bathed in a nutty brown butter sauce that’s brightened with lemon juice and flecked with briny, crispy fried capers is a winning equation and it also happens to be one of the least fussy pastas you can make. It’s the epitome of fast and fancy — fit for having friends over or a mid-week meal that deserves a little something special.

Brown butter truly is a one-ingredient sauce that makes pretty much anything fancier. If you’re willing to add a few more ingredients to the skillet, however, you’ll be greatly rewarded. Toss a handful of capers into the butter as it cooks and they’ll fry up to be crisp, briny bites that provide intrigue. And while the nutty richness of brown butter is easy to love, it lacks acidity. Adding a big squeeze of lemon juice to it solves this problem and the result is a more complex, balanced sauce that was really no more difficult to make.

You know that feeling of nailing dinner? Despite the busy schedule, even when you feel like the fridge is empty, and especially on those nights when you really don’t want to cook? Us too, and that’s because we’ve got a bunch of smart ideas up our sleeves that help us meet any dinner challenge.

In this series, we’re showing you what dinner plays to use when pasta’s on the menu. You’ll find quick, one-pot meals, fast & fancy ravioli dinners, and game-changing grocery store shortcuts to make dinner an easy win.