Antioxidant Rich Foods for Skin, Twirled Into a Tomato Paste Spaghetti With Kale and Almonds

The short version: Antioxidant rich foods for skin are mostly colorful plants: tomatoes, red peppers, leafy greens, berries, citrus, nuts and olive oil. In one small trial, 40 g of tomato paste a day with olive oil lowered sunburn redness by 40% after 10 weeks. No food replaces sunscreen. This spaghetti puts a can of tomato paste on the table.

Start with a can of tomato paste and the rest is easy. Fried slowly in olive oil with garlic, it turns from sharp to deep and sweet, and it carries everything else in this pan: ribbons of lacinato kale, creamy white beans, whole wheat spaghetti, a squeeze of lemon and a handful of toasted almonds. Dinner in 35 minutes, and the recipe card holds every quantity.

There is a reason for the whole can. Split between four plates, it comes to about 42 g of paste each, close to the 40 g a day that volunteers ate with olive oil in the best-known tomato and skin trial. That is not a dose to chase, just a nice coincidence of the kitchen and the research.

Antioxidant rich foods for glowing skin, compared by vitamin C

Among antioxidant rich foods for skin, vitamin C is the nutrient with the clearest job. MedlinePlus explains that the body needs it to form collagen, the protein used to make skin, and that it cannot make or store it, so it has to come from food every day. Every figure below is per 100 g of the raw food, from USDA FoodData Central.

Food (raw)	Vitamin C per 100 g	Group MedlinePlus names among the top vitamin C sources
Red bell pepper	127.7 mg	Green and red peppers
Kale	93.4 mg	Leafy greens
Green kiwi	92.7 mg	Kiwi fruit
Broccoli	89.2 mg	Broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower
Strawberries	58.8 mg	Berries
Oranges	53.2 mg	Citrus fruits
Grape tomatoes	27.2 mg	Tomatoes and tomato juice
Tomato paste, no salt added	18.4 mg	Tomatoes, here cooked down

Two things this table leaves out. Lycopene, the red pigment of tomatoes that the trials below followed, is not part of the USDA figures we use, so we give no number for it. And vitamin E, which MedlinePlus names as another antioxidant, comes mostly from other foods: vegetable oils, nuts such as almonds, seeds, and greens such as spinach and broccoli.

MedlinePlus also notes that raw fruits and vegetables are the best sources of vitamin C, and that cooking or long storage reduces it. That is a good argument for a plate of strawberries or kiwi after this pasta.

What the trials on tomato, cocoa and skin found

We read the abstracts of these papers on PubMed on November 6, 2026. Most of them measure one thing: how red the skin turns 24 hours after a controlled dose of UV light. That is a lab marker of sunburn, not a measure of wrinkles or glow.

• Tomato paste, 2001. In the Journal of Nutrition (PMID 11340098), 9 volunteers ate 40 g of tomato paste, about 16 mg of lycopene, with 10 g of olive oil every day for 10 weeks, while 10 controls had the olive oil only. At week 10, redness after UV exposure was 40% lower in the tomato group. At week 4, there was no difference yet.
• A 2015 trial that saw nothing. In Archives of Dermatological Research (PMID 26024575), 20 people took lycopene either as capsules or as tomato paste for 10 weeks. Blood lycopene rose more with the paste, but the authors found no protective effect against UVB.
• The pooled picture, 2024. A meta-analysis in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition (PMID 36606553) combined 21 intervention studies in healthy people. Tomato and lycopene were associated with less UV redness and pigmentation and with thicker, denser skin. The authors see lycopene-rich foods as a possible help from the inside, not a sunscreen.
• High-flavanol cocoa, 2006. In the Journal of Nutrition (PMID 16702322), women drank a cocoa with 326 mg of flavanols a day or one with 27 mg for 12 weeks. UV redness fell by 25% in the high-flavanol group, and their skin became better hydrated and less rough. The low-flavanol group did not change.
• Chocolate, 2014. A larger trial in Nutrition Journal (PMID 24970388) gave 74 women 30 g a day of high- or low-flavanol chocolate for 12 weeks. Sensitivity to UV did not differ between the groups; elasticity at the temple rose slightly in the high-flavanol group.
• Diet and skin aging, 2025. A meta-analysis of 61 studies in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology (PMID 41174715) found that carotenoids mostly reduced redness, healthy fats improved elasticity and polyphenols helped the skin barrier. The authors note that evidence for carotenoids and vitamins still has gaps.

Small trials, sunburn redness and nothing more

Read together, the trials are small, often a few dozen people, and they do not all agree. They measure redness after UV light in a clinic, not acne, glow or wrinkles you could see in a mirror. And the effect of tomato paste took 10 weeks to show up. What they support is modest: antioxidant rich foods for skin belong in a diet full of colorful plants and olive oil, a good habit for many other reasons too, and the tomato is the food with the most research behind it.

Why tomato paste goes in with olive oil

The 2001 trial did not hand out tomato paste on its own: the volunteers ate it with 10 g of olive oil, and the control group had the same oil without the paste. This recipe keeps that pairing. Three tablespoons of olive oil across four plates is about 10 g each, and the paste fries in it before anything else goes into the pan. In the 2015 trial, blood lycopene also rose more with tomato paste than with capsules.

Frying does something for the cook, too. As the paste cooks in the oil, it dries out, darkens from bright red to brick and loses its raw, tinny edge. Scrape the bottom of the pan as it starts to stick: that browned layer is flavor, and the pasta water lifts it into the sauce.

Cooking antioxidant rich foods for skin into one pan

Mise en place takes ten minutes. Strip the kale leaves from their stems, stack them and slice them into ribbons about 1 cm wide. Slice the garlic thinly so it softens instead of burning. Rinse the beans in a colander until the foam is gone; rinsing also washes off some of the salty canning liquid.

• The almonds go first. Toast them in the dry skillet while the pasta water heats, then use the same pan for the sauce.
• Low heat for the paste. Medium-low and 5 to 6 minutes. High heat burns it before it sweetens.
• Pasta water, a little at a time. Its starch is what makes the sauce cling. You will probably use 1 1/2 cups (360 ml) in total.
• Finish with lemon and a last spoon of olive oil off the heat. It wakes up the tomato and keeps the kale bright.

Serve it straight from the pan, family style, with a green salad on the side.

Nutrition per plate

The recipe makes 4 servings. Each one has about 466 calories, 17 g of protein, 68 g of carbohydrate, 17 g of fat and 408 mg of sodium, with about 13 g of fiber and 47 mg of vitamin C. Every figure is an estimate added up from the USDA record of each raw ingredient; the vitamin C is counted before cooking, which lowers it. Your brand of canned beans will change the sodium, and rinsing them lowers it.

Swaps for the same pan

• Spinach instead of kale. Add it in the last minute; it wilts almost at once.
• Chickpeas instead of white beans. Same weight, drained and rinsed.
• A red bell pepper. Slice one and soften it in the oil before the garlic, for more color and vitamin C.
• Walnuts or sunflower seeds in place of the almonds. Sunflower seeds are among the vitamin E sources MedlinePlus lists.
• Gluten-free. Use a chickpea or lentil pasta, and cook it to its package time.

More colorful plates live on this site: the roasted vegetable and chickpea bowl in foods for clear skin is built on carrots, red pepper and walnuts, and the antioxidant smoothie blends blueberries and spinach. If the cocoa trials made you curious, our anti-inflammatory desserts include one made with dark chocolate.

Safety: food is not sunscreen

• Sun protection comes first. The CDC explains that most skin cancers are caused by too much exposure to UV rays, and recommends shade, protective clothing, a hat, sunglasses and a broad-spectrum sunscreen of SPF 15 or higher, put on again after 2 hours in the sun and after swimming or sweating (CDC, Sun Safety). None of the trials above replaces any of that.
• Antioxidant supplements are not the same as food. MedlinePlus warns that high-dose antioxidant supplements may carry risks: high doses of beta-carotene may raise lung cancer risk in smokers, high doses of vitamin E may raise the risk of prostate cancer and one type of stroke, and these supplements can interact with some medicines (MedlinePlus, Antioxidants).
• Vitamin C pills. MedlinePlus advises against more than 2,000 mg a day, which can cause stomach upset, diarrhea and, rarely, kidney stones (MedlinePlus, Vitamin C).
• Kale and warfarin. Kale is rich in vitamin K. If you take warfarin, MedlinePlus says sudden changes in how much vitamin K you eat can change how the medicine works, so ask your provider how much is right for you (MedlinePlus, Vitamin K).
• Allergies. This recipe contains tree nuts (almonds) and wheat; the swaps above cover both.

A skin change that worries you, a mole that grows or a rash that will not settle belongs with a doctor, not in the kitchen.

Where the numbers come from

• Nutrition: USDA FoodData Central records for whole wheat pasta, no-salt-added tomato paste, canned white beans, raw kale, almonds, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and salt for the recipe, and the raw foods in the vitamin C table.
• Studies: the six papers linked above, found through PubMed and read in abstract form on November 6, 2026.
• Official pages: MedlinePlus on antioxidants, vitamin C, vitamin E and vitamin K, and the CDC page on sun safety, read on November 6, 2026.