Wild Garlic Pesto Pasta (Printable version)
Fresh spring pasta with fragrant wild garlic pesto, pine nuts, and Parmesan in 25 minutes.
# What You'll Need:
→ Wild Garlic Pesto
01 - 2.6 ounces wild garlic leaves, rinsed and patted dry
02 - 1.8 ounces toasted pine nuts (or walnuts)
03 - 1.8 ounces freshly grated Parmesan cheese
04 - 1 garlic clove, peeled
05 - ⅓ cup plus 1½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
06 - Juice of ½ lemon
07 - Salt and black pepper, to taste
→ Pasta
08 - 14 ounces dried pasta (spaghetti, linguine, or penne)
09 - Salt, for pasta water
→ Optional Garnish
10 - Extra grated Parmesan
11 - Freshly cracked black pepper
# Directions:
01 - Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a rolling boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package directions until al dente. Reserve ½ cup of the starchy pasta water before draining.
02 - While the pasta cooks, add the wild garlic leaves, toasted pine nuts, grated Parmesan, and garlic clove to a food processor. Pulse several times until the ingredients are coarsely chopped and combined.
03 - With the processor running continuously, slowly drizzle in the olive oil until a smooth, vibrant green paste forms. Add the lemon juice and season with salt and black pepper to taste. Blend briefly to incorporate.
04 - Add the drained pasta to a large bowl or back to the pot. Spoon the wild garlic pesto over the pasta and toss thoroughly, adding small splashes of the reserved pasta water as needed to achieve a silky, even coating.
05 - Divide among serving bowls immediately. Finish with extra grated Parmesan and a generous crack of black pepper if desired.
# Expert advice:
01 -
- Wild garlic pesto tastes like spring distilled into a sauce, sharper and more complex than anything from a store bought jar.
- The whole thing comes together in the time it takes to boil pasta, which makes it perfect for evenings when you want something spectacular without effort.
02 -
- Wild garlic loses its vivid color quickly once blended, so adding the lemon juice right at the end helps preserve that knockout green.
- If the pesto seems too thick to coat the pasta, the starchy cooking water is all you need to loosen it without diluting flavor.
03 -
- Toast the nuts in a dry pan just until you can smell them because even thirty seconds too long turns them bitter and that bitterness will run through the whole dish.
- Reserve more pasta water than you think you need because it is impossible to get back once it goes down the drain.