Winter Pesto Pasta with Sardines
About the recipe
This pesto pasta is just as satisfying and nutritious as a traditional summer basil pesto. This meal is very well balanced as it provides your family with carbohydrates, fats and protein, not to mention the vitamin-rich greens that make this pesto so good.
If you have some leftover pesto, it’s also great on toast with eggs and avocado.
Winter Pesto Pasta with Sardines
- 70 grams green leaves and herbs (*see notes)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 large lemon (juice of)
- 1/4 cup cashews, almonds or hemp seeds
- 1/4 cup parmesan (grated)
- 3/4 cup olive oil
- salt to taste
- 150 grams sardine in salt water or olive oil
- Pasta of your choice
Place the greens, garlic, lemon juice, nuts, parmesan and olive oil in a blender or food processor and blend until the ingredients have come together to form a textural pesto. If you would prefer a smooth pesto you can blend for a bit longer. Add a pinch of salt if you like.
Prepare your pasta as usual. When you drain the pasta, save about 3 tablespoons of the water. This will thin the sauce a little and help the pesto cling to the pasta.
Toss the pesto, the drained pasta and the 3 tablespoons of pasta water in the same pot you boiled the pasta in, to save washing up, and fold through the sardines.
Mash a sardine in with some pesto for your baby. If you would like to add some pasta then simply blend it with the pesto and sardine.
BLW- Serve as pictured with your choice of pasta.
Note** You can use a combination of many leafy greens and herbs for this pesto, including kale, cavolo nero, the leafy tops from carrots, spinach and parsley. For this recipe I used a combination of parsley, carrot tops and cavolo nero.
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