A quick dinner of your favorite pasta topped with fresh basil pesto. Make it as garlicky, cheesey, salty, or even as spicy as you like.
Ready in 15 minutes! Including making your own homemade pesto.
Jump to:
Pesto pasta makes a great dinner when you’re looking for something quick, filling, and flavorful.
yes you can use it finished basil pesto (which I sometimes do!). If so, I would always recommend going with fresh pesto – It seems livelier and tastier than the stuff in the jar.
However, if you prepare it at home, it is possible Personalize it exactly to your liking. Maybe add a fresh chilli, some leftover arugula, and a few walnuts. Whatever you like.
Plus, it only takes a few minutes to make at home — and you can do it easily while your pasta is cooking.
📋 Ingredients for pesto sauce
- Fresh basil – and lots of it
- olive oil – Try to use a quality extra virgin olive oil whenever possible
- Garlic – a must have for that fragrant garlic flavor
- Parmesan (or Italian-style veggie hard cheese if you want a veggie option)
- pine nuts – for the creamy nutty note
- Salt And pepper
🔪 How to make pesto pasta
For the full recipe with detailed steps, see the recipe card at the end of this post.
- Cook the spaghetti al dente in a large pot of boiling salted water. Once cooked, drain and drain Reservations a cup of pasta cooking water.
- While the noodles cook, basil, garlic, pine nuts, grated parmesan, black pepper, and salt together in a small food processor (or mini-food processor, or even blender) for a few seconds. This will help break up the garlic and pine nuts initially.
- Then, with the engine running, pour in the olive oil in a steady stream. If you’re using a blender (I use my Nutribullet sometimes), just add half of the oil, blend, shake well, then add the rest of the oil and blend again.
- Give it a try, then add more salt (shredded Maldon is lovely, but table salt is fine too).
- Mix the pesto with the cooked pasta and some of the reserved pasta water. The pasta water loosens up the sauce and ensures that it sticks beautifully to the spaghetti.
👩🍳PRO TIP Simply add a little (½ tsp) Maldon Salt before blending the pesto, taste after blending, then add more salt. This will ensure you get just the right amount of seasoning. Plus, if you add the Maldon salt after blending, you get that deliciously salty crunch.
🍽️ What to serve it with
🍲 More awesome quick pasta recipes
Stay up to date with new recipes!
Subscribe to the newsletter to hear when I post a new recipe. I’m in too youtube (new videos every week) and Instagram (Stories behind the scenes and beautiful food photos).
pesto pasta
A quick dinner of your favorite pasta topped with fresh basil pesto. Make it as garlicky, cheesey, salty, or even as spicy as you like. Ready in 15 minutes.
INSTRUCTIONS
-
add the 400 g (14 oz) dried spaghetti Place in a large saucepan of boiling salted water and cook for 10-13 minutes (or until the consistency is to your liking).
400 g (14 oz) dried spaghetti
-
While the pasta is cooking, prepare the pesto.
-
add the 50 g (1.75 ounces) fresh basil leaves, 2 cloves of garlic, 40 g (3 tbsp) pine nuts, 30 g (⅓ cup) freshly grated parmesan cheese, ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper And ½ tsp Maldon salt Place in a food processor and process for about 10 seconds to break up the garlic and pine nuts.
50 g fresh basil leaves, 2 cloves of garlic, 40 g (3 tbsp) pine nuts, 30 g (⅓ cup) freshly grated parmesan cheese, ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper, ½ tsp Maldon salt
-
Turn the food processor back on and pour that in 90 ml (⅓ cup) olive oil in a steady stream – which should take about 10 seconds.
90 ml (⅓ cup) olive oil
-
Check the consistency – if you like it a little chunky, it’s done. If you like it smoother, whisk an additional 10-20 seconds until the consistency is to your liking.
-
Taste the pesto and add a little more salt if needed. Set the pesto aside.
-
When the spaghetti is done, drain in a colander, reserving 1 cup of the pasta cooking water.
-
Put the spaghetti back in the pan you cooked it in. Add the pesto and a good splash (about ⅓ cup) of the pasta cooking water.
-
Using tongs, toss the spaghetti in the sauce over low heat until the sauce coats the pasta. Add more pasta water if you want the sauce to be even fluffier.
-
Divide the pasta between bowls and sprinkle with black pepper, grated parmesan, toasted pine nuts and some fresh baby basil leaves.
½ tsp black pepper, 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese, 2 tbsp toasted pine nuts, 1 handful of fresh baby basil leaves
✎ Notes
Place the pine nuts in a semi-dry skillet (no oil) and heat over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until the pine nuts are golden brown. This should take about 2-4 minutes. Keep an eye on them as they can burn quickly.
Now quickly remove them from the pan, otherwise they will continue to brown in the residual heat of the pan.
Prepare the toasted pine nuts
I like to toast extra pine nuts to use in salads, avocado toast, etc. Because of this, I usually toast a larger amount than is needed for this recipe.
You can toast pine nuts beforehand. Store them in an airtight container at room temperature once the pine nuts have cooled.
After roasting, they go rancid faster. Therefore, do not keep them at room temperature for more than about 5 days.
You can Freeze roasted pine nuts and they last longer (about 3 months in an airtight container).
Simply thaw the required amount at room temperature before use.
storage
Store the pesto in a sealed jar in the refrigerator for up to a week. It may lose some of its vibrant color during this time, but it still tastes great.
If you’re keeping it in the fridge for more than a day, I like to add a tablespoon of lemon juice to keep the vibrant color.
Alternatively, you can freeze the pesto in portions (I use an ice cube tray) – then thaw in the fridge, or add the frozen pesto cubes directly to the dish you are making – it should thaw fairly quickly from the heat.
ingredient swap
- Swap out the spaghetti for short pasta such as rigatoni, fusilli or penne
- Replace pine nuts for walnuts, almonds or cashew nuts
- Swap out the parmesan for vegetarians Italian-style hard cheese for a vegetarian option.
- Add a green chili before blending, or after blending, stir in ¼ tsp chili flakes for added spiciness.
The nutritional information is a guideline per serving. This recipe is enough for 4 people.
Nourishment
Calories: 702kcalCarbohydrates: 79GProtein: 19GFat: 35GSaturated Fatty Acids: 5GPolyunsaturated fat: 8thGMonounsaturated fatty acids: 19GCholesterol: 9mgSodium: 473mgPotassium: 379mgFiber: 4GSugar: 3GVitamin A: 752IUVitamin C: 3mgCalcium: 139mgIron: 3mg
Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links. If you purchase the product, I will receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you). If you buy, then thank you! This helps us keep Kitchen Sanctuary running. The nutritional information given is approximate and may vary depending on several factors. You can find more information in our General Terms and Conditions.
reader interactions
This website uses Akismet to reduce spam. Find out how your comment data is processed.