Pea and Spinach Pesto Pasta proves that being a simple dish doesn’t mean you lack any pizzazz. Fresh garden flavors are the star in this dish.
All I seem to crave in Winter (Summer for my American readers) is pasta. Over the past few weeks, pasta and I have had quite some fun times, however I needed to lay off the cheesey bechamel sauces and pasta bakes (somehow extra cheese always gets involved!). 
Giving up the idea of pasta entirely for a while seemed to hard. But then I had a green idea. No cheese, just green. Pea and Spinach pesto pasta was the perfect compromise. Body gets green, dinner is simple and I still get delicious pasta. Win-win yeah?
I had a huge bunch of beautiful big deep green English Spinach left over in my fridge, and I knew exactly how I could sneak the whole bunch into a delicious meal for Jackson and I. Bright green pesto pasta sauce. Jackson is a sucker for pesto, I am a sucker for pesto and I had recently bought some fancy pasta called Casarecce that is a Sicilian pasta, by Wikipedia description, Short lengths rolled into a S shape and recommended for dishes with eggplant, ricotta or BASIL!
The meal is fairly simple to make it you have a food processor and equally as delicious if you don’t, but will be a little more chunky with chopped up spinach and whole peas.
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Pea and Spinach Pesto Pasta
- Yield: 2 servings 1x
Description
Pea and Spinach Pesto Pasta proves that being a simple dish doesn’t mean you lack any pizzazz. Fresh garden flavors are the star in this dish.
Ingredients
- 120 grams 4 ounces casarecce pasta (or any pasta)
- 1 cup green peas
- 1 cup spinach
- 3 tablespoons basil pesto
- 1 clove of garlic
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
- lemon and parmesan cheese to serve if desired
Instructions
- Place pasta in a pot of salted boiling water to cook and set aside
- In a food processor, blitz your peas, spinach and clove of garlic with a tablespoon of olive oil. If you don’t have a food processor, you can bash, mash and chop.
- Once blitzed, mix the basil pesto through and season with salt and pepper.
- Set aside. Just before you remove pasta from the heat, collect half a mug of the pasta water. Do not throw this out – it’s gold.
- Strain pasta and return to the pot. Mix through the pesto and add some of the reserved pasta water back to the pasta to loosen the sauce.
- Season with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper, parmesan and lemon if desired.
- Category: Primi
