Red Pesto Pasta
A delicious spiced Red Pesto Pasta Sauce. The sweetness of sun-dried tomatoes, creaminess of pine nuts, punch of garlic and heat of chilli blitzed together. Perfect!
Ingredients
- 16 oz pasta (such as spirali, fusilli or spaghetti)
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 oz sun-dried tomatoes in oil
- ½ teaspoon chilli flakes
- 21/2 tablespoon pine nuts
- 6 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1-2 teaspoon wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar
Instructions
- Boil the water. Follow the pasta packet instructions for the amount of water needed to cook 16oz (500g) of pasta, put in a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Add a generous amount of salt. I generally add about 1 tablespoon. This helps to bring out the flavour of the pasta, rather than making it salty.
- Cook the pasta. 16oz (500g) pasta to the boiling water and cook for about 5 minutes less than indicated on its wrapping, then start testing the pasta for an al dente texture (the pasta still has a bit of texture when bitten into). Whilst the pasta is cooking prepare the Red Pesto Sauce.
- Prepare the garlic. Peel and roughly chop 1 or 2 cloves of garlic. If the garlic seems strong or the cloves are large, start with just 1 clove of garlic.
- Process the sauce ingredients. Put the garlic cloves, 2oz (60g) sun-dried tomatoes, ½ teaspoon chilli flakes, 3 tablespoons pine nuts, 6 tablespoons extra virgin oil and 1 or 2 teaspoons of wine (or balsamic) vinegar into a food processor or blender. Pulse blitz the ingredients to form a smooth sauce.
- Taste check. Do a taste check of the sauce and add extra chilli or garlic if needed, blitzing again. Bear in mind that the taste will be quite intense without the pasta to soften it.
- Drain pasta. Once the pasta has reached that al dente texture, drain the pasta and reserve a cup of the pasta water.
- Add sauce. Return the pasta to the warm saucepan and add half of the pesto sauce. Stir the sauce into the pasta gently so that the pasta is evenly coated. If the sauce seems to be too thick, add a little of the reserved pasta water to loosen it. Add more of the pesto sauce if you would prefer a thicker coating of sauce. Serve the Red Pesto Pasta hot, or keep for later as a cold pasta salad.
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