To me, pesto is a hallmark of summer, with the vibrant greens and bright lemon flavor. It's a great way to sneak a bunch of spinach into your meal without even noticing and this sauce pairs well with a variety of veggies, making this a perfect dish when you haven't actualized your "I-really-should-go-to-the-grocery-store-soon" reminders yet. This pasta recipe is super fast and all of the hard work is done by your food processor/ blender (I'd recommend a food processor, see Notes)
Classic pesto is super satisfying and creamy, and but there are some days when I'm not up for the 1/2 cup of olive oil you need to build the traditional sauce. I recently discovered a lighter, chickpea-based alternative that keeps the heart of pesto flavors, but is actually oil-free! I like each recipe on different occasions, so feel free to experiment with both.
Simple pan-fried chicken or braised tofu are great additions to this pasta, or you could make it vegan by omitting the Parmesan cheese, the options are endless!
Version #1 - TRADITIONAL
Ingredients:
1/4 cup walnuts
1/4 cup cashews
2 large garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 cup gently packed fresh basil leaves
1 cup spinach
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
2 tbsp lemon juice
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Directions:
Cook you pasta according to package directions and your add-ins separately (onion, mushroom, baked chickpeas, tofu, chicken, etc.)
(Pesto) Place the walnuts and garlic into a food processor and process until coarsely chopped, about 10 seconds. Add the basil leaves, spinach salt, and pepper and process until mixture resembles a paste, about 1 minute. With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil through the feed tube and process until the pesto is thoroughly blended. Add the Parmesan and process a minute more.
Add the pesto to a pan and adjust the flavor with lemon juice and salt, and the consistency with pasta water or more olive oil. Combine all of the pasta ingredients and serve!
Version #2 - OIL-FREE!
Ingredients:
- Pasta
- 1/4 cup cashews, roasted (80g)
- 1/4 cup walnuts
- 1 handful basil, fresh
- 2 handfuls of fresh spinach
- juice of ½ lemon
- 2 ½ Tbsp nutritional yeast
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1/3 cup almond milk, unsweetened (60ml), or more for a thinner consistency
- 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1/4 cup parmesean cheese
- A few mushrooms
- A few cherry tomatoes
Directions:
(Prep) Cook your pasta according to package directions. (reserve a bit of the pasta water)
Wash the basil and spinach. Open the can of chickpeas reserve half of the can for the sauce. Toss the rest of the chickpeas with a bit of salt and cumin, and bake these chickpeas in an oven/ airfryer at 400 degrees for 8-12 minutes, until crispy.
Add the cashews and walnuts to the food processor and pulse until they are broken up into small pieces. Add the remaining ingredients to the food processor and pulse until the sauce is well combined (pesto doesn't have to be completely smooth though!)
Cook your pasta add-ins (mushrooms, onions, cherry tomatoes, tofu, etc.)
Add the pesto sauce to the pan and adjust to taste with salt and more lemon juice. Add the pasta and all of your add-ins and stir to combine. Garnish with the crispy baked chickpeas and enjoy!
Notes:
Link to the Five-Spice Braised Tofu seen in this picture!
A food processor works better for pesto / thicker sauces. Blenders are great for high-power situations (ex: breaking up frozen strawberries for smoothies), but if what you are trying to blend isn't liquid-y enough, then your mixture often gets stuck in the middle and doesn't come in contact with the blade at the bottom (aka more work to mix it around blend it in a few rounds)
That being said, my food processor recently broke, so a blender does work if it's all you have!
I took one picture at night and the other during the day, so it is kind of difficult to compare each version in the pictures, but in real life, both sauces end up looking pretty similar, and if you serve Version 2, most people won't even miss the oil!
The chickpea-based sauce was originally intended as a pesto spread on bagels in the source recipe, but I thinned it out a bit to make it a pasta sauce and I think it turned out really well
Random fact: I remember as a kid I always avoided pesto (I forgot why, maybe because it was so green?), but one of my earliest Disneyland memories is that I had a random pasta dish at the restaurant near the Goofy's Fly School ride/ Jellyfish drop ride in California Adventure, and I thought it was the best thing ever and then someone told me it was pesto. To relieve the cognitive dissonance, I decided I liked pesto from then on out!
Source recipe: Traditional Pesto from Once Upon a Chef and Chickpea pesto from Mina Rome (one of my new favorite YouTubers)
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