Description
Pesto Cavatappi is a tasty copycat recipe of the famous Noodles & Company dish. This recipe uses fresh homemade basil pesto sauce. It smells and tastes amazing and is guaranteed to please the whole family. With this recipe, you can make a mouthwatering pasta any night of the week.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
For Pesto
- Fresh basil leaves - 1- 1/2 cups
- Freshly grated Romano or Parmesan-Reggiano cheese (about 2 ounces) - 1/2 cup
- Extra virgin olive oil - 1/4 cup
- Pine nuts - 1/3 cup
- Garlic cloves, minced - 3
- Salt - 1/4 tsp
- Freshly ground black pepper - 1/4 tsp
For Pasta
- Pesto - 1/2 cup
- Water - 2 cups
- Cavatappi Pasta - 8 oz
- Fresh white mushrooms (sliced thickly) 1 -1/2 cup
- Olive oil - 1 Tbsp
- Cherry tomatoes (sliced in half) - 1 cup
- Garlic cloves (roughly chopped) -2 cloves
- some shredded Parmesan cheese (for garnish) (optional)
- Heavy Whipping Cream or milk - 1/4 cup (optional)
Instructions
- Rinse Basil leaves in cold water
- In a food processor or high-power blender, combine basil leaves, Parmesan cheese, pine nuts ,salt, garlic, and olive oil.
- Your Pesto sauce is ready.
- Set Instant pot to Sauté Mode
- Once you see the HOT message, add oil and cherry tomatoes
- Sauté the tomatoes for around 30 seconds.
- Remove the tomatoes out and set them aside.
- Add the chopped garlic and the mushrooms to the inner pot
- Sauté them for around 1 minute.
- Add the pesto sauce and mix the ingredients well and then add the Cavatappi pasta to the inner pot
- Add water and salt to taste.
- Do not stir.
- Set the Pressure cooker to Manual/Pressure Cook with High Pressure, for 5 minutes.
- Once the timer is up, allow around 5 minutes for NPR (natural pressure release).
- Use the quick release method to let off the remaining pressure.
- Add in heavy cream and stir everything well.
- You can saute the pasta for a few minutes if you like the sauce a bit thicker.
- Top it with the cherry tomatoes that were set aside earlier.
- You can top it with Parmesan cheese
- Serve hot and enjoy !
Prepare the Pesto Sauce
For the Pasta
Notes
- Do not pressure cook the tomatoes because they will become too mushy
- Do not pressure cook the cream or milk because it will separate
- Use homemade pesto sauce in this recipe, it enhances the flavors.However, if you are really in a pinch you could always use store bought Pesto sauce
- We use cavatappi noodles which are like a macaroni noodle that is in the shape of a spiral, you can use them or other similarly shaped noodles if you prefer
- You can use gluten-free pasta to make this pesto pasta
- Do not stir the noodle before pressure cooking the pasta
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Additional Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Cuisine: Italian
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1
- Calories: 613
- Sugar: 2
- Sodium: 539
- Fat: 50
- Saturated Fat: 11
- Unsaturated Fat: 35
- Trans Fat: 0
- Carbohydrates: 29
- Fiber: 3
- Protein: 16
- Cholesterol: 37