I have one of the easiest recipes ever to share with you today.
Easy and tasty – the perfect combo, don’t you think?
I was craving pasta not long ago, but I wasn’t in a very creative mood, so I looked online for some inspiration.
Pesto pasta kept popping up everywhere, and since I had just made a batch of it the day before for a salad, that’s what I decided to make. I was excited to have such a simple dish for lunch. Cook pasta, add prepared pesto, eat. Easy.
But, as I reached into the fridge to grab the pesto, I noticed the jar of nacho cheese sauce that I’d made for our quinoa & black bean burgers a few days prior.
Hmmm – “do I dare?”, I asked myself.
And dare, I did.
I warmed up the nacho cheese, then added it to the cooked pasta, along with the pesto. I mixed it all together, crossed my fingers, stuffed a bunch of pasta in my face..
and just about died from the deliciousness.
The spicy nacho cheese with the cool pesto was a surefire winner!
Lunch was awesome that day. Which reminds me, I need to make another batch of pesto…
- 1½ cups fresh basil
- ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil (or hemp oil)
- 1 cup pine nuts*
- 4 medium garlic cloves
- ⅓ cup nutritional yeast
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1¼ cups water
- 1 cup raw cashews, soaked for at least 2 hours
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- heaping ¼ tsp paprika
- heaping ½ tsp onion powder
- heaping ½ tsp garlic powder
- 1½ tsp salt
- 1 large roasted red pepper
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast
- 3 cups pasta noodles of your choice (I used spelt spiral noodles)
- Add all ingredients to a food processor and process until just a little bit chunky. Set aside.
- Add all ingredients to a food processor or high-powered blender and process/blend until smooth. In a small saucepan on low-medium heat, warm the cheese sauce, whisking constantly for about 5 minutes, or until thickened. Set aside.
- Cook according to package directions. Set aside.
- Add your pesto and nacho cheese sauce to the cooked pasta. You will likely not use as much as you prepared, so just add a bit of each at a time, and stop when it gets to where you want it.
- Season with a bit more salt & pepper, if desired.
*Prepare the nacho cheese sauce and/or pesto in advance to save on prep/cooking time!
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