Pasta is my go-to lunchtime meal, since it’s so quick to make, while delivering so many possible flavors amazingly. I made this quite a while back when I was starting to cook by myself.

Who would’ve thought that olive oil, garlic, and red pepper would make such a satisfying sauce that doesn’t need a large protein to support it? My favorite part of this pasta is that I can throw in whatever kinds of vegetables or mushrooms in it as long as I have the cook times of each of them figured out.

What makes this particular pasta Japanese-style is the use of perilla leaves and the red pepper, which is a Japanese pepper called 鷹の爪 (taka-no-tsume). Even though I made this years back, I still love making it to this day, proving to me how powerful simplicity can be.