Linguine with spinach pesto

What en excellent way to get your daily iron, enjoying your delicious linguine at the same time! Pesto genovese is normally made with basil, but spinach can be a perfect substitute as a main ingredient. And what is more, pesto is in fact a sauce from uncooked vegetables, so take that… fast food!

 Laziness Factor: 2

[where 0 is brushing your teeth and 4 is carving a real-size replica of the Grand Canyon]

Ingredients for 4 servings:

– 500g linguine

– 400-600g spinach

– 2-3 garlic gloves

– 100-150g walnuts

– 2-3 tablespoons pine nuts (optional)

– 100-200g hard cheese (parmesan or pecorino)

– 100-200ml olive oil

– salt, pepper

 

1.

The reason why there is some flexibility with the quantities of the ingredients used in this recipe is that you’ll be making it mainly in a blender, so you can add things as you go. It ‘s easy!

First rinse the spinach. Don’t leave too much water on the leaves.

 

2.

Peel two garlic cloves. There is no need to chop them.

 

3.

Here there is a choice between pine nuts or walnuts being used in the recipe. I picked the pine nuts, but kept the walnuts as potential garnish for the dish.

 

This is also the time to start boiling the linguine in salted water, 1 minute less than indicated on the package.

 

4.

Place the garlic cloves and the pine nuts (or walnuts, if you picked those) in the blender.

 

5.

Grind only for a little while. You are going to add the rest of the ingredients and mix again, anyway.

 

6.

Open the blender lid and add as much spinach as you can, as well as half of the oil and some cheese. Don’t forget to add salt and pepper. Then blend.

 

7.

Keep adding ingredients and tasting for salt, until your’re out of spinach.

During this process, if your sauce seems dry, keep adding olive oil.

 

8.

In the end, there will be a rather thick sauce at the bottom of your food processor.

 

9.

If it’s almost time to drain your linguine, pour the pesto sauce in a large cooking pan.

Using a cup, take some of the boiling water where the linguine is cooked and pour it in the pan with the pesto sauce. This water contains starch from the pasta that will help the sauce stick on the linguine later on.

 

10.

Drain the linguine and throw them immediately in the the pesto sauce that is starting to boil.

Then turn the heat off right away!

 

11.

Just when the sauce has started boiling for good, remove from the heat and serve.

 

12.

You can optionally garnish with pine nuts or crushed walnuts.

Add some grated cheese as well – and enjoy!

 

Here is the video of this recipe:

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Lazy Pasta is the page to explore the world's collection of easy pasta recipes - and then some more elaborate ones. As our life has become faster, you can also try our quick recipes that use favourite pasta types like spaghetti, lasagne, fusilli and rigatoni, that are combined to create simple pasta dishes.

All the Lazy Pasta recipes are presented in photos, which guide through the step-by-step process, and they all end up with their respective pasta recipe video.

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Lazy Pasta recipes are divided into categories: there are vegetarian pasta recipes, pasta recipes with meat, pasta recipes with seafood and fish, pasta salads, pasta soups and recipes with baked pasta.

The recipe presented above is Linguine with spinach pesto and it belongs to the Vegetarian Pasta Recipes category.

Why pasta?

Pasta is a great ingredient for quick and delicious dishes. Perfect pasta dishes don't always have to be hard to prepare. According to Lazy Pasta there is "an easy pasta recipe for every human on the planet".

Although it's hard to tell which country pasta originates from (whether it's Italy or China), the history of pasta is long and interesting.

Truth be told, pasta has become popular as an ingredient of the Italian cuisine and it forms part of the Mediterranean diet. Pasta dishes can be ordered and devoured in various Italian restaurants all around the world.

The secret of the pasta may lie in its simplicity. It is usually made of white flour or wheat flour, but today we also have the options of whole wheat pasta and, more recently, gluten-free pasta.

Then again, the list of ingredients that can be used in a pasta recipe is endless; The sauce can be anything for a simple tomato sauce to bechamel sauce, white sauce with cream or other dressings. Garlics and onions are great friends of pasta, vegetables and other greens like parsley, dill, spinach, zucchini, peppers, broccoli and mint can be found in various recipes, while cheese is an absolute ticket to success, either grated, sliced or baked on top.

No matter how elaborate a pasta recipe is, the result can be mouth-watering and is certain to please everyone's palate.