An extremely yummy and fulfilling pasta made with a very healthy, lip smacking avocado pesto. A great option when you want a filling and light meal
Has it happened to you that you really want to have a yummy pasta for lunch/dinner but are too lazy to cook a sauce up for it? It happens to me very often. And that’s when my delicious, creamy, avocado pesto pasta comes to my rescue. The avocado pesto is a no cook, all blender recipe, making this is a quick and easy pasta recipe. Moreover, this is like a double bonus of a meal for me. Firstly, it is pasta and secondly it’s got avocado in it, with the goodness of basil and walnuts, too! Yes, that’s correct. I use walnuts instead of pine nuts to make my pesto, along with the garlic, basil and olive oil. But, this is since I like the taste of walnuts more than pine nuts – which are traditionally used. On the other hand, even almonds and cashews work pretty well, here.
This extremely creamy and delicious pasta is a great summer recipe. You won’t need to spend a lot of time making it and it also is a super light meal, perfect for those hot days. In fact this is an under 30 minutes recipes, with the maximum time being that of the time to cook the pasta. For my creamy, avocado pesto pasta I have not cooked the pasta al dente´. That’s because, since there isn’t going to be cooking beyond this, your pasta has to cooked completely here. The next step is only to mix the cooked pasta with the avocado pesto and garnish it. I love topping this pasta with some pan-roasted cherry tomatoes and some feta cheese, too. However, you can enjoy your avocado pasta as is, without any topping, as well.
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Avocado pasta
In a way, my avocado pasta is a pasta salad too. The reason being, you can enjoy it both warm as well as at room temperature. However, I’d urge you to have a warm bowl of this creamy deliciousness and not cool it down. This is not because, the pasta won’t taste good, but because your avocado will start turning brown. Not that it will spoil or taste rotten, but it will loose it lovely green colour. This happens due to a chemical reaction with the air that cut avocados develop brown pigments. Moreover, I love a warming bowl of pasta for my meals so I prefer it so, most of the times. Also, what is a pasta without some parmesan cheese shavings! So as soon as I drain my cooked pasta into my mixing bowl, I grate some of the cheese over and toss it in.
When the cheese touches the hot pasta and melts in, it makes it more creamy. And thereafter, I mix my avocado pesto in and top it off with some more cheese and roasted veggies. However, if you’d like to keep your pasta totally vegan, you can leave the cheese out. Your pasta is going to be creamy anyways because of the luscious avocados in them. Now, I like my pesto with an extra kick of chili in it, so I tend to add more than the usual amount of chili flakes in it. But, you can absolutely adjust that according to your taste. You could make it more garlicky, more lemony – however you like it. The point is, you can basically use my recipe as is to make yourself a wonderful bowl of pasta or tweak it to make it even more pleasing to your taste buds.
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Now, if you love avocados, you may also love my avocado paratha (flatbreads) recipe. Again this is is super easy and immensely yummy paratha recipe that an avocado fan like you must try! So, do give these recipes a shot soon and let me know how you like them. I’d love to hear from you. You can share your food pictures with me on Instagram and.or drop in a line in the comments section, below. Even if late, I will surely respond. 🙂
Eat hearty!
Creamy avocado pesto pasta
Equipment
- Shallow cooking pot
Ingredients
- 500 g spaghetti or any pasta
- 2 ripe avocado roughly chopped
- ¼ cup walnuts roughly chopped
- ¼ cup basil leaves roughly chopped
- 2-3 cloves garlic
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp chili flakes
- ¼ cup parmesan cheese grated
- salt to taste
Optional topping
- ½ cup cherry tomatoes roasted
- feta cheese crumbled
Instructions
- Cook the spaghetti until completely done, drain and keep it aside. In the meanwhile, blitz together the avocados, walnuts, olive oil, garlic, basil leaves, chili flakes and salt
- Make sure you grind all these to a smooth paste - this is your avocado and walnuts pesto
- In a bowl, mix together the cooked pasta, cheese and the avocado pesto. Using tongs, mix well so that the pesto coats the spaghetti evenly
- Serve your creamy avocado pesto pasta warm, garnished with some more cheese, basil leaves, feta cheese and roasted cherry tomatoes (if using). Enjoy!
Notes
- You can also use pine nuts/almonds/cashews to make the pesto instead of the walnuts
- Mix the cheese in when the pasta is still hot, so that it can easily melt and combine with it
- To make the roasted tomatoes, rub some washed and pat dried cherry tomatoes with salt, pepper, olive oil and Italian seasonings. Pan roast them, until they start charring, and then remove from flame and serve
- tsp - teaspoon
- tbsp - tablespoon
- 1 cup = 250 millilitres
