Ingredients

The following ingredients have 5 Servings
  • 1/2 pound pasta (penne, gemelli, corkscrew, or shells)
  • 12 ounces bag of baby spinach
  • 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/3 cup walnuts
  • 1-2 tablespoons salt
  • 1 cup freshly grated parmigiano reggiano cheese (or more, to suit your taste)
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 1 pint cherry tomatoes
  • 1 handful of toasted pine nuts
  • 1 lemon
  • salt and pepper

Instruction

  • Bring large pot of water to boil. Add pasta and cook for recommended time.
  • While the pasta is cooking, add 2/3 of the spinach into a food processor. Add olive oil, walnuts, garlic and salt. Process until you get desired texture – I prefer some slight chunks but you can also process it very smooth.
  • When pasta is done cooking, drain and rinse or shock pasta in cold water to stop the cooking process and cool the pasta. Put pasta into a large salad bowl.
  • Add 2/3 of spinach pesto mixture to pasta and stir to coat. Sprinkle in ¾ of the cheese while mixing to distribute. Check seasoning and add salt or more cheese if necessary. If taking this to a potluck, here is a good stopping point. You can dress the salad and toss all the ingredients together right before serving to make sure the spinach doesn’t wilt.
  • Add rest of spinach to bowl and most of tomatoes. Squeeze a little lemon juice onto leaves and add the rest of the pesto and a sprinkling of salt. Toss leaves to coat.
  • Bring pasta up from bottom and toss with greens. Add remaining tomatoes, pine nuts and cheese before serving.