Need a quick meal? This delicious, saucy pesto pasta by chef Kunal Kapur has got you covered. Recipe inside

Chef Kunal Kapur shares a quick and easy pesto pasta recipe that lifts your mood and is made with simple steps and a few ingredients.

A bowl of pasta is one of the most comforting meals that can easily lift your mood. The internet is filled with delicious recipes, but when you are tired at the end of the day, you need a dish that can be whipped up in minutes, and chef Kunal Kapur's delicious pesto pasta recipe has got you covered.

The celebrity chef and MasterChef India judge shared the recipe on his blog and wrote, “Learn how to make pesto pasta with a quick and easy recipe! Anyone can make pasta if you have an easy recipe that shows how to make pesto pasta with delicious pesto sauce.” Here are the exact steps to make this dish:

Ingredients

• For pesto sauce

Basil leaves – 2 cups

Almonds/pinenuts/cashews (toasted) – handful or ⅓rd cup

Garlic cloves – 2 nos

Parmesan cheese, grated – ½ cup

Olive oil – ¾ cup

Salt – to taste

Pepper powder – to taste

• For pasta

Dried pasta – 2cups

Water – for boiling

Salt – 1tbsp

Butter – 1 tbsp

Method

Step 1: Lightly toast the almonds in the oven, then add them to the blender with the garlic and grind to a powder. Add grated cheese, basil leaves, and salt, then start grinding.

Step 2: Trickle in the olive oil while it is still grinding, until it forms a puree. Remove and pour it into a large bowl.

Step 3: Boil water and add salt. In boiling water, add penne. Cook as per instructions on the packet. Remove and strain the pasta.

Step 4: Immediately add the pasta to the sauce, drop the butter, add a dash of pasta water, and toss everything well with a ladle until the pasta is perfectly coated in the sauce.

Step 5: Serve on a pasta plate and garnish with basil leaf and grated cheese.

Tips and tricks

The chef also shared a few tips and tricks he uses to help you make a restaurant-grade pasta dish. He suggested, “Overblending will cause overheating of the pesto. This will cause the flavour to be lost and the pesto to darken. Make sure to touch the outside of the blender jar to make sure it is not hot. If it's hot, then stop for a while and do it again.”

He also warned to ‘never ever cook pesto and to always toss freshly boiled, hot pasta into the pesto sauce’. Lastly, he advised:

• Over-boiling pasta is easy, so try not to do that by following the boiling instructions on the dried pasta packet.
• Always add pasta to boiling water and immediately stir it; do not let it sit.
• The pasta water is useful for lightening the sauce, so do not throw it away till your pasta is ready.

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