What Paul McCartney Turns To For A Quick Post-Performance Meal

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As you could imagine, spending several hours performing on stage in front of crowds, night after night, is quite energy-intensive. Just as one might refuel after a long day or workout, Paul McCartney has a go-to meal to replenish his energy after a show while on tour. The vegetarian of 50+ years has a specific routine: not eating during the day, but a post-meal snack, a drink, and a plate of pasta when the night is over.

In an interview with Meat Free Monday (of which McCartney is a co-founder), he explained that he fasts during the day and waits to eat until the show has finished. On the tour bus, he'll have a margarita with bandmates and a quick sandwich of cheese and English Branston's pickles (a spread of chopped and pickled vegetables). In the post-show interview from 2024, he explained what his full dinner was after the aperitif: "Tonight, I'm having a pasta olio – pasta with oil – with little vegetables mixed in. Some broccoli, cauliflower, a bit of carrot, and I think tonight we're going to have a fake 'chicken' patty chopped up into that. So, it's a pasta with fake 'chicken' patty and vegetables. Mmm, this is getting me hungry!"

Pasta olio, at its core, is a pretty straightforward, carb-heavy dish, but McCartney has transformed it into a pretty balanced meal. The vegetables add fiber, vitamins, and minerals, and the vegetarian chicken patty provides protein.

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The original version of this pasta dish is spaghetti aglio e olio, which translates to "spaghetti with garlic and oil" — so it appears McCartney skips the garlic. In addition to the olive oil, this pasta dish also gets treated with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper, fresh parsley, and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

If you are interested in including the garlic, you'll thinly slice the cloves and cook them in olive oil with red pepper flakes to release their flavors. After the spaghetti is cooked, it's added to the pan with some pasta water to absorb all the aromatic goodness. For step-by-step directions, check out our recipe for spaghetti aglio e olio.

Paul McCartney has written a plant-based cookbook, so it's not a surprise that he's made his own rendition of the classic pasta dish. If adding veggies to the recipe, they could be chopped up and sauteed with the garlic and red pepper flakes. Or, consider roasting vegetables and adding them on top, along with the chopped parsley. The meat-free chicken patty might not be easy to find at your local grocery store.  A Mediterranean protein option to add is cannellini beans that have been crisped up in the oven with olive oil.