Pesto Spaghetti with Shrimp
and house salad with French vinaigrette
Folks were such a fan of our creamy pesto (thanks to avocado) that we're bringing it back for favorites week. Enjoy fresh pestos while it's still summer!
Smarts: Pesto can freeze so if you have a lot of basil in your garden, feel free to pesto-fy it all before the season ends.
Ingredients
- Shrimp - 1 lb, shelled and deveined
- Spaghetti - 1/2 lb ((Sub fettuccine, linguine if you prefer))
- Cooking oil - 1 Tbsp
- Peas - 1 1/2 cups
- Homemade pesto - 2/3 cup ((Ingredients listed separately))
- Lemon - 1, juice of
- Tomatoes - 2, chopped ((1 large or 2 small))
- Cucumbers - 1/2 lb, chopped
- Honey - 1 tsp
- Dijon mustard - 1 tsp
- Sherry or red wine vinegar - 1 1/2 Tbsp
- Olive oil - 2 Tbsp
- Mixed greens - 6 oz
- Pine nuts - 3 Tbsp ((Sub walnuts if you're on a budget))
- Basil - 3 cups, loosely packed
- Garlic - 1 clove, peeled
- Avocado (small) - 1/2
- Olive oil - 1/4 to 1/2 cup
Nutrition Facts
Prep
- Pine nuts (optional step) - Toast in a frying pan over medium-high heat until golden brown. It's also completely fine to skip this step.
- Make pesto (this makes enough for tomorrow night) - Combine pine nuts, basil, garlic, and avocado in a food processor. Pulse until ingredients are broken up. Drizzle in olive oil, while keeping food processor on, until you get a sauce-like consistency. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Reserve ⅓ for tomorrow’s dinner. (Can be done up to 3 days ahead)
- Shrimp - Defrost, rinse, and dry.
- Tomatoes / Cucumbers - Prep as directed.
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Make
- Bring a saucepan of water to boil. Salt generously and add pasta. Cook until al dente, tender but not soggy.
- This takes a bit of timing, but heat up a saute pan over medium-high heat 2 to 3 minutes before pasta is done. Add cooking oil to saute pan and then shrimp to pan. Toss until pink on the outside.
- Once pasta is done, use tongs to transfer cooked pasta directly from saucepan into saute pan (don’t toss pasta water just yet). Add in peas and pesto. Toss until everything is coated nicely and shrimp is cooked through. If you want your sauce to be ‘saucier’ just add a few tablespoons of pasta water. Remove from heat and finish with lemon juice. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Whisk together honey, Dijon, vinegar, and olive oil (double if making tomorrow’s dinner). Toss with tomatoes, cucumbers, and mixed greens. Enjoy with pasta.
Nutrition Facts
Reviews
Ratings
19 reviews
Wonderful. I'd never made zucchini noodles, and it turned out great. I splurged on really high quality shrimp from the fish market, and I'm glad I did. The only hard part was getting the basil and pine nuts to grind. I probably used more oil than I needed to. Very fast meal to make, and yet it seemed sophisticated. It wasn't enough food for my dinner guest, though. I made an extra side dish in addition to the salad.
0 HelpfulI usually don't give two stars... But the description of, meh it was okay fit. The pesto lacked a little flavor, and I feel there were a little too many peas for my tastes. But I'm sure with a couple personal tweaks we'd try this again.
0 HelpfulI added lemon and parm to the pesto because it was a bit bland... but really like this meal! I will now only refer to it as spaghetti verde though because of all the yummy veggies!
0 HelpfulYum! Made the paleo version using zucchini for spaghetti and my husband and I were pleasantly surprised with the taste/texture. We cheated and bought the pesto already made...
0 HelpfulReally good. I added a lot more garlic than listed and found it needed a lot of olive oil to get it at a saucy consistency but it turned out really good!
0 Helpful