Mushroom & Basil Pesto Spaghetti

Every once in a while at the market when mushrooms go for cheap, we get a little ahead of ourselves and buy the biggest box. We give ourselves excuses for indulging, saying we’ll making a yummy mushroom risotto, or a creamy mushroom pasta sauce. But, but, but. There’s only so much mushroom risotto one can eat at a go, which translates to: There’s only so much mushrooms one can use at a time. We never learn and sometimes our mushrooms threaten to die away in our fridge, because we’ve left them unused in there for too long.

Alas! This recipe is a saver! In addition to the standard mushroom risotto and mushroom cream sauce pasta, here’s another one to add to the list. A great, delicious and quick way to use those almost-shrivelled mushrooms before you’ll have to throw them out. If you’ve got too many tomatoes in the fridge, you can toss them in this dish as well!

Basil pesto is fantastic with pasta. It was MADE FOR pasta. I think it was also made for mushrooms. This combination is such a tasteful one: the rendered juices from the mushrooms complement pesto so scrumptiously, to form a small amount of delicious sauce to go with spaghetti. By adding a little garlic to the dish and an extra bit of Parmesan and pine nuts, this might well be one of the best ways of elevating basil pesto to the next level!

Mushroom & Basil Pesto Spaghetti

Serves 2

• 2 portions spaghetti
• 2handfuls sliced mushrooms
• 6 cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 1 small handful baby carrots, halved
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp basil pesto
• 2 tsp olive oil
• Salt, to taste
• Parmesan, to grate
• (optional) Dried chilli flakes
• (optional) Toasted pine nuts

•••

1. Boil the pasta, together with the carrots, in a pot according to the instruction on the packet. Prepare the rest of the ingredients.
2. With olive oil, saute the tomatoes and mushrooms with the garlic. Then add the pesto and add splash of water from the pasta cooking pot. Add chilli flakes for slight kick, as much as you wish. Simmer.
3. When the pasta is al dente, drain both pasta and carrots well, and add to the sauce. Stir well with toasted pine nuts; other kinds of nuts work as well.
4. Season with salt and serve with a grating of Parmesan.

Save those mushrooms! Save our recipe card!

x, K