Bringing the sunshine inside on this rainy day: freshly made pesto! Our basil plants have been growing in overdrive these last few weeks with all the sunshine we’ve been having, so nothing else to it than making a bunch of french pesto. And we don’t mind at all. I made a classic pesto with olive oil, toasted pine-nuts, parmesan cheese and lemon zest.
I also made fresh pasta, cutting the sheets into wide strips, like pappardelle. But just store bought dry pasta is fine as well of course! I would recommend using a wider pasta like tagliatelle or pappardelle in stead of spaghetti so the sauce can cover as much pasta as possible. Mmmmm.
Pasta Pesto!
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Loading...Ingredients
- 200 g fresh pasta or 150 g dried pasta
- Handful toasted pine-nuts to serve
- 150g cherry tomatoes, halved
- Pesto
- Big bunch fresh basil, stems removed if they are woody
- 2 tbsp toasted pine nuts (hazelnuts, almonds or walnuts will work too)
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 1-2 garlic cloves
- ± 1/3 cup olive oil (more if needed)
- ± 100 g grated parmesan
- Pepper & salt to taste
- Squeeze lemon juice to taste
Instructions
Make the pesto
Blitz all the basil, toasted pine-nuts, lemon zest, garlic and parmesan in a blender.
When coming together slowly start adding the olive oil until you reach the consistency you like.
Taste and season with pepper and salt and a squeeze of lemon juice. Taste again and adjust to your liking.
Boil the the fresh pasta for ±3 minutes in salty water (for dried pasta follow instructions on the packaging).
Drain when ready leaving behind ± half a cup of the cooking liquid, this will help make the sauce nice and glossy.
Mix in the freshly made pesto (± 3 tbsp) and stir well.
Serve with some extra toasted pine nuts, cherry tomatoes and some basil flowers if you have any growing. Buon appetito!
Notes
For pasta I recommend a kind that will cover well in the sauce, like tagliatelle, papardelle, penne or fusilli.
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