Wholegrain arugula-basil pesto spaghetti is a quick and healthy pasta dish. A rich homemade pesto, roasted cherry tomatoes and some parmesan cheese make it rich, delicious and gorgeous. It’s a lovely meal perfect for any day, any season.
Pasta has always been and will always be one of the most favourite dishes on the planet. That doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s super easy to prepare, very versatile, there are plenty of pasta types and double so many sauces to choose from and it’s one of the most comforting foods, too. Everyone can make a delicious pasta dish.
I love pasta. Spaghetti, tagliatelle, penne and lasagne are just some of my favourite ones. The numerous sauces couldn’t be more colourful, different but unique each in its own way. Which pasta sauce is your favourite? It’s a quite difficult question, I know. I couldn’t pick just one, as well.
Besides a classic ragu alla Bolognese and the amazing carbonara, I like also to create different varieties of sauces. For instance penne with hazelnut sauce, healthy pumpkin mac and cheese, unusual sweet burst tomato spaghetti and burrata. However, I also love pesto sauce, which I always make myself.
Making pesto is extremely simple and quick. All you need is a couple of ingredients and a food processor or an immersion blender. Basil, parsley, arugula, carrot greens and spinach are only a few examples of what to use to make pesto. In this recipe, I picked the slightly spicy arugula and the aromatic basil combination. Remember, whatever type of pesto you use, it will work fantastic.
Pasta with pesto is a wonderful dish. Especially when it’s tossed with plenty of homemade pesto. A generous amount of pesto makes the dish more colourful, more tasteful and richer. It’s incredibly delicious. Yummy.
Pasta cooking water works miracles
Probably you’ve noticed, that sometimes pesto pasta can be a bit on the dry side. But not with my recipe. A great trick how to get a lovely silky pesto pasta, without adding extra oil, is to add a splash or two of pasta cooking water. Yes, that’s all you need. Add some pasta cooking water when tossing spaghetti and pesto together, until silky smooth. It will be a whole other story. Wink.
To explain it shortly, when the pesto fat and the starch in pasta water combine, they create this thick, silky sauce. That’s called emulsion. Fancy, right? Wink. This is the common and the only proper way to make pasta in every Italian house and in my house, too. Wink.
Ingredients for two portions of wholegrain arugula-basil pesto spaghetti:
- 300 g cherry tomatoes
- 3-4 handfuls of arugula
- 30 g basil
- sea salt
- 3 Tbsp of olive oil and some for tomatoes
- 70 g pine nuts
- 3 Tbsp of parmesan cheese and some for garnish
- 250 g whole grain spaghetti
- 80-130 ml pasta cooking water or as needed
- 1 sprig rosemary
To begin, preheat the oven to 200º C. Wash the tomatoes, place them onto a baking dish with the rosemary, drizzle with some olive oil, and put in the oven for 20 minutes or until burst.
In the meantime, prepare the arugula-basil pesto. Wash the arugula and basil and let them drain for a couple of minutes. Then, put both in a food processor and add the salt, pine nuts, cheese and olive oil. Blitz for 30 seconds until finely chopped. Add a couple of splashes of cold water and blitz until smooth.
Furthermore, bring a medium pot of water with salt to boil. Then, throw in the spaghetti, give them a stir and cook them according to the package or until al dente.
Put the pesto into a larger bowl and, using the pasta tongs, transfer the spaghetti to the bowl. Then, add the pasta water, a little at a time, and toss to combine.
Finally, divide the wholegrain arugula-basil pesto spaghetti between the plates, top with roasted tomatoes and garnish with more parmesan cheese.
Enjoy.
