Superfood Pesto – Let's Wine About It Sister

We love pesto around here – whether it’s on pasta, veggies, pizza or eggs! I used to make pesto at home all the time and then when Trader Joe’s came out with their Vegan Kale Pesto I guess I got little lazy! My cousin told me last weekend how she makes it all the time for her kids and reminded me about basil being a superfood. So, I basically couldn’t wait to make it and it was literally the first dinner I made when we got home. I looked up a bunch of different pesto recipes and came up with my own superfood pesto that has extra sneaky greens and goodies that you can’t even taste. It’s perfect for any day but especially the days you are looking to get in a few more veggies and amazing for getting so many good superfoods into your kids. Not to mention there are so many fun ways to use it!

Superfood Pesto Pasta Recipe

Ingredients

1 bunch organic kale leaves
2 cups basil leaves
2 small to medium zucchini
3 garlic cloves
1 1/2 cup walnuts
1 1/2 cup parmesan
2 to 3 tablespoons of flaxseed meal
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 lemon juice squeezed
8 oz pasta – I highly recommend the Barilla Red Lentil Pasta – it cooks well and is only made with 1 simple ingredient: red lentils!

Directions

Chop garlic and zucchini into slices.
Sauté garlic in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until golden on a medium heat.
Once golden, add the zucchini, season with salt and let it sauté together.
At the same time, boil water in a pasta pot, don’t forget to heavily salt the pasta water. Add the kales leaves and let them blanch for approx. 2 minutes, remove from the water once they’ve wilted.
Add a splash of the boiling water to the zucchini and let it simmer down until it has softened, then turn the heat off.
Start to cook pasta in the same boiling water.
In a food processor or blender, add the wilted kale, zucchini, garlic, splash of pasta water and blend until smooth.
Now add basil, walnuts, cheese , lemon juice, remaining olive oil, pinch of salt, along with another splash of pasta water to a blender and blitz. Blend together until combined, a little texture is ok with the pesto but you want it to be a nice thick creamy consistency. If it’s too thick, add a splash more of the pasta water.
When pasta is cooked to al dente, drain into the same pan where the zucchini was sautéed. Don’t forget to save some of the pasta water!
**Optional but you should: In the same pan as the zucchini I cooked ground chicken sausage. Once the sausage was cooked through, I added the noodles back in with sausage before topping with pesto.
Pour over the pesto, add a splash of pasta water and let it cook together for a minute so that the pasta is nicely covered with your pesto.
Serve with parmesan and enjoy your pasta full of superfoods and sneaky veggies

This makes a ton of pesto! Freeze or use for other meals throughout the week (see below for more delicious ways to use the superfood pesto that we love).