Kale Pesto Pasta

Kale Pesto Pasta is one of my favorite plant based meals! We eat this at home at least once a week, because it is delicious and so easy to make. It takes about 10 minutes after you get the water boiling, and in my opinion, it tastes better than “real” pesto.

You will need:

3-4 cloves of garlic

1/2 cup walnuts (or cashews, sliced almonds, etc.)

4 to 5 cups of chopped kale

1/2 cup olive oil

juice of one lemon

2 teaspoons kosher salt (plus more to put in the boiling water to cook your spaghetti)

1-lb package spaghetti (Di Martino brand in the blue package is my favorite, but any kind is fine. They have this at some Winn Dixie stores.)

This is easiest to make in a medium or large size food processor.

First, boil the water, and add enough salt after it starts boiling to make the water as salty as the ocean. Then, cook the spaghetti according to the package. I always cook for 8 minutes and check the pasta.

(Pro tip: don’t put olive oil in the pasta water. If it starts to boil over, stir. I have found that non-enriched pasta with two ingredients – water and durum wheat semolina flour – doesn’t really boil over when I cook it.)

Put the ingredients into the work bowl of the food processor in the same order they are listed above (garlic, walnuts, kale, olive oil, lemon juice, salt.) Then, turn on the food processor and let it blend together into the best pesto ever!

Drain the spaghetti and put it back in the empty pot. Add the pesto to the spaghetti, and toss the spaghetti and pesto together.

Done!

One more thing. If you stop here, your pasta is vegan. So, if you are vegan and want to stay that way, stop here, or find a vegan parmesan cheese product! If you are not vegan, it’s parmesan cheese time. If you are a cheese fanatic like me, add an obnoxious amount of cheese and enjoy!