Quick Green Pasta Sauce

5 minutes to make this quick healthy green pasta sauce that is made with blended spinach, cashews, aromatic garlic and delicious olive oil. It is a perfect easy healthy pasta sauce recipe that can replace your store bought pesto as it has even more added vitamins and minerals due to the spinach. 

Why we love this recipe: 

• made in 5 minutes 
• nutritious spinach pasta sauce 
• simple ingredients you always have on hand
• great way to add vegetables to your baby or toddler's diet, especially for picky eaters 
• vegan green pasta sauce 
• dairy-free green sauce

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• How to make green pasta sauce? 
• Substitutions 
• Add-ins
• What to serve this with? 
• Store
• FAQ
• Quick Green Pasta Sauce
• Comments

Ingredients

• baby spinach - rich in vitamin A, E, magnesium and folate. You need to use fresh spinach for this recipe 
• basil - fresh basil leaves are a great addition to this spinach sauce and make it a delicious pesto
• raw cashew nuts - help create a creamy green sauce and add some healthy fats to the recipe. You want to use unsalted cashew nuts here. 
• raw garlic clove
• fresh lemon juice - recipe needs the acidity to balance out the flavors 
• olive oil - cannot be omitted in a delicious green pasta recipe 
• salt and black pepper

How to make green pasta sauce? 

What is different with this green sauce and others you may find is that here we blend the spinach first and then cook the sauce in a saucepan. It is easier than sautéing the spinach first and then blending it.

1. Place the spinach, nuts and garlic in a blender or food processor and blend until you have smaller bits.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients in the blender and blend until you reach a desired consistency. I prefer with tiny chunks but you can also go for a smooth sauce.
3. Cook your pasta according to the package instructions in a large pot of water. Once you drain the pasta save 1 cup of the water.
4. In a large pan place the pesto, 1 cup of pasta water and bring it to a medium heat. Once heated remove from the stove and mix in the cooked pasta.
5. You will have delicious fresh green sauce with a vibrant green color that you can enjoy

Substitutions 

• almonds, walnuts or pine nuts can be used instead of cashew nuts 
• this recipe can be made with all different kinds of pasta so you can have a spinach spaghetti recipe, fettucine, linguine, fussile, any favorite pasta of your choice
• make it a vegan gluten-free pasta recipe by using gluten-free pasta 

Add-ins

• parmesan cheese - you can add 6 oz (60g) of grated parmesan cheese to the below recipe when blending 
• nutritional yeast - if you want to keep the spinach sauce vegan but want a bit more of a cheesy flavor use about 1 oz (30g) of nutritional yeast in the recipe when blending 
• red pepper flakes or chili flakes  - to make it spicy

What to serve this with? 

• add vegetables as a side dish - like an arugula salad with balsamic vinegar, garlic sautéed frozen peas,  pan fried asparagus, heirloom tomato salad or cherry tomato salad
• top it with protein - garlic shrimp works great on top, add some tuna and make a tuna pesto pasta, salmon or even leftover chicken breast or chicken thighs. Or plant-based proteins such as white beans, hemp seeds, tofu.  

Store

• store the pasta with the green sauce in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days
• freeze the pesto for up to 3 months 
• thaw the green sauce in the fridge overnight and reheat on the stove for a few minutes until it starts steaming and serve it with fresh pasta  

FAQ