There is something fun about growing your own food and turning it into meals for your family that they ACTUALLY want to eat! This pistachio pesto summer garden pasta is a recipe that you can make from your garden.
These past few years the boys have developed an interest in gardening and caring for plants of their own. We capitalized on their excitement by growing real food that we use in our kitchen daily.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever grown zucchini squash? Do you find that you have way more veggies than your family can handle?
It doesn’t take much for a successful garden to produce more food than one family can handle, which is why we try to get creative and find multiple ways to use our garden “loot”!
As an Italian family, pasta is always in our weekly meal rotation. A few summers ago, when I had a plethora of basil, zucchini, yellow squash, and cherry tomatoes, I started playing around with how to use up the large amounts of veggies that were coming out of my garden.
I usually don’t make this recipe dairy-free, but a dear friend of mine came for dinner the night I photographed this meal and she can’t have dairy. So I experimented. It worked out great and tasted absolutely AMAZING…so I decided to publish the recipe with dairy-free ingredients, however, it is so easy to add in the dairy ingredients if that is more your speed.
One of my friends loves adding pine nuts and green olives to this pasta. My mom spices it up with feta cheese and sun dried tomatoes. You really can’t go wrong with this simple pistachio pesto pasta.
Either way, this recipe is a great way to use the vegetables from your garden in a way that your family will enjoy week after week!
Pistachio Pesto Summer Garden Pasta
Pistachio Pesto:
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 4-6 whole garlic cloves
- 1/3 cup shelled pistachio nuts
- 2 cups fresh basil
- 1/3 cup oat milk (dairy-free version) or heavy whipping cream
- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese (eliminate if making the dairy-free version)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Pasta
- 2-3 chicken breasts seasoned and grilled (optional)
- 1 lb pasta
- Diced veggies – Truly you can’t have too many veggies and anything you like works! We typically use zucchini, yellow squash, cherry tomatoes, asparagus, and corn.
Instructions: Dump the pesto ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth. Dice your veggies. Season and grill your chicken. While the chicken cooks, boil the pasta and sauté the veggies with some olive oil, salt, and pepper until tender. Once everything is prepared, toss the pasta, veggies, and pesto together. Serve in a pasta dish and top with sliced chicken, fresh basil and parm.
What are you currently growing in your garden? When you add your own spin onto this pistachio pesto pasta recipe let us know what you tried! We’d love to add it to our list.
