Pesto Pasta and Beans
Sweet-and-spicy basil star in this fresh and flavourful Pesto Pasta and Beans recipe.
Pesto.. Pasta.. and Beans
Now pasta with beans may not sound that yummy, but hear me out. The Italians came up with the idea of combining beans and pasta. ‘Nuf said.
Pesto is easy to make from scratch with just a handful of ingredients. Its fresh flavor is the highlight of this super-fast protein rich pasta dish. Start to finish, thanks to a high-speed blender, this dish can be on the table in less than 15 minutes. This pesto pasta and beans recipe is loaded with protein, thanks to the almond-based pesto, and the added cannellini beans.
Pesto Pasta & Beans
Ingredients
Pesto
- 2 cups fresh basil loosely packed and freshly washed
- 1/2 cup sliced almonds
- 2-3 tbsp lemon juice juice from 1/2 a lemon
- 1-2 cloves garlic minced. For a milder taste, add only 1 clove
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- freshly ground pepper
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast optional
Beans
- 1 19oz can of cannelli beans drained and thoroughly rinsed.
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1/2 tsp dried basil
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- salt and pepper
Pasta
- 4 servings cooked per package directions in salted water I used spaghettini, cooked for 6 minutes
Instructions
Pesto
- In a blender or food processor, combine the basil, almonds, lemon juice, garlic, salt and nooch (if using) and purée. While the motor is running, drizzle in the olive oil until incorporated. Season with pepper to taste.
Beans
- In a small saucepan, heat the olive oil. Add the garlic and dried basil and cook over moderately high heat, stirring, until fragrant and the garlic is just beginning to brown, about 1 minute. Add the beans and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper and cook over medium-low heat for 5 minutes so that the beans soak up the flavoured oil.
Pasta
- Prepare per package instructions.
Toss pasta with beans, pesto and serve.
Pesto Pasta and Beans – Recipe Notes
Thank you. To whomever invented the blender. Today, my husband made himself a smoothie, I made the baby her lunch (blended peas, anyone?) And then I made this pesto! We buy a new one of these suckers every 5 years or so because we use it so much the motor eventually burns out. This is Ninja/Bullet/blender number four. (This isn’t an ad, we just run them into the ground).
- Almonds are substituted for pine nuts in our recipe because we always have almonds on hand, and rarely buy pine nuts. Hot tip: Buy nuts in the baking section of the grocery store, they are way cheaper, as opposed to from the designated nuts, trail mix, dried fruit display.
- Beans taste way better when they are lightly cooked. In theory, you could just toss a can or rinsed beans into this dish, but since it only takes a few minutes to cook them, it’s well worth the additional effort.
- Fresh Basil can be a bit difficult to find these days, I could only find one plant! To make this recipe, I raided our Click and Grow. Basil grows so well in this thing!
