Penne Pesto

5 from 1 vote

Penne Pesto is a quick and easy recipe perfect any night of the week! Using a homemade basil pesto sauce combined with chewy al dente pasta.

Prep Time5

Cook Time10

Total Time15

Course: Dinner

Cuisine: Italian

Keyword: penne pesto, pesto penne

Servings:

Calories: 737kcal

Basil pesto: add the basil leaves, pistachio nuts, garlic and pecorino romano cheese to the bowl of the food processor. Pulse a couple of times to combine, then drizzle in the olive oil. Blitz again then use a spatula to scrap down the insides of the bowl, keeping the pesto low, near the blade level. Next take a teaspoon and taste the pesto. Then add half of the lemon juice. Blitz to combine then add the remaining lemon juice if desired.
Penne: read and follow the instructions on the pasta to cook it in a large pot of boiling salted water. Moments before it is ready, use a heatproof jug to scoop out 1 to 2 cups of the water. Then use a colander and drain the pasta and discard the rest of the water.
Pesto and penne pasta: add the cooked pasta to a large pan (no heat required) then dollop in the pesto, pour in ½ cup of the reserved pasta water then use a wooden spoon and kitchen tongs (one in each hand) to toss and combine the penne, pesto and pasta water.
Garnish: generously garnish the penne by sprinkling over some black pepper, grating some additional pecorino romano cheese and by adding a few fresh basil leaves. Provide forks and spoons for serving.

Note 1 Pecorino romano cheese: this is a sweet cheese made from sheep's milk. You can substitute parmesan cheese to the equivalent amount if you wish.
Note 2 Lemon juice: freshly squeezed from a lemon or bottled is fine for this recipe, don't sweat the difference.
Note 3 Reserved pasta water: I like to take out 1 to 2 cups but for the recipe we only need to add ½ cup (125ml). If you keep the leftovers in a sealed, jar with lid these can be used to juice up leftovers. Hence the difference that we take out compared to what we pour in to the recipe.
Serving size: 4 main dish sizes or 6 -8 plus if you are wanting to serve this as a side with a main dish. Scoop some pasta onto the plate and a bit of everything else to make it a complete feast.