Walnut Pesto Pasta

Making homemade pesto is always a great idea. However, it usually requires a trip to the store to grab a few key ingredients. One of those ingredients usually tends to be pine nuts. While they’re great for making pesto, I don’t find myself using them in many other recipes. So I started wondering if I could substitute another nut in place of the pine nuts. I ended up deciding to try out using walnuts for my home made pesto and it turned out awesome. The pesto turned out as delicious as always, and I didn’t even notice that I used walnuts instead of pine nuts. The best part about using walnuts is that I usually tend to keep them well stocked in my kitchen since I use them for so many different recipes. Hopefully you enjoy this recipe as much as I did, and that it leaves one less item off your shopping list.

Make it Gluten Free: To make this dish gluten free, replace the pappardelle pasta with your favorite gluten free pasta. My favorite gluten free brand is Jovial.

INGREDIENTS

PESTO

• 2 cups of basil
• ½ cup of walnuts
• 3 garlic cloves
• ½ - ¾ cup of olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

PASTA

• 1 package of pappardelle pasta (or your choice of pasta)
• ¼ cup of walnuts - chopped

STEPS

1.      Add 2 cups of basil to a food processor and pulse for a few seconds. Add the ½ cup of walnuts and 3 cloves of garlic and blend until coarsely chopped.

2.      Add the olive oil to the food processor and blend until all the ingredients are smoothly combined.

3.      Add desired amount of salt and pepper and transfer to a small serving bowl.

4.      Fill a large pot with water, add salt, and bring to a boil. Cook pasta according to the packaging instructions. (Usually about 10 minutes).

5.      Once the pasta is done cooking, serve desired amount of pasta into each bowl. Add a few spoonfuls of pesto to each bowl of pasta and mix until pesto is fully coating the pasta.

6.      Chop up the ¼ cup of extra walnuts and add desired amount to each bowl and serve.

Enjoy!