The rich tex­ture of wal­nuts replace pine nuts and parme­san cheese in this quick and sim­ple recipe. I love to serve this over spaghetti or fusilli pasta. Any left­over pesto is great on crack­ers. For left­over pasta, sim­ply refresh it in a hot skil­let with a splash of water and a bit of olive oil. It plumps up beau­ti­fully for Pasta with Meat Sauce or for break­fast in a Pasta Egg Scram­ble.

Prep time: 5 min­utes
Total time: 10 min­utes
Yield: 3/4 c. pesto
Spe­cial tools: mini food proces­sor or blender

For pasta:
1 bag rice pasta (Tin­kyada fusilli is my favorite for night­shade free; my fam­ily prefers bion­at­u­rae fusilli)
pot of boil­ing wate
salt
olive oil

For pesto:
4 c. loosely packed, fresh, washed basil leaves
3/4 c. wal­nuts
1/4 c. olive oil
2 gar­lic cloves, roughly chopped
1/2 tsp. salt

1. Boil water and add large pinch of walt and about 1 T olive oil. Add pasta and boil for approx­i­mately 7–8 min­utes (sev­eral min­utes less than the direc­tions). Stir the pasta for the first minute so that pasta won’t stick together, and stir a few times as it cooks.
2. Make sure not to over­cook this pasta – drain it when it’s a bit al dente. Once drained, put it back in the pot and sprin­kle with olive and salt and give it a good stir.
3. For pesto, place basil, wal­nuts, olive oil, gar­lic and salt into a mini food proces­sor or blender and puree until smooth. Serve over pasta and test for fla­vor. Because you’ve omit­ted the cheese, you might need a lit­tle sprin­kle of salt.
4. To store left­over pesto, place in an air tight con­tainer with a thin layer of olive oil on top to keep it fresh and green.