Spring Vegetable Pasta with Peppery Kale Pesto (Direct from the Garden!)

One of my favourite spring recipes is this spring vegetable pasta recipe. You can even mix and max a variety of vegetables if you have certain vegetables growing in your garden this time of year.

What are the nutritional benefits of this spring vegetable pasta?

Here are just a few reasons to love this spring vegetable pasta recipe:

• Asparagus is a good source of inulin. This is a prebiotic that feeds the healthy flora in our gut to help support our digestion.

• Far from just an add-on to pretty up your plate, chives contain vitamins A, C and several minerals, including folic acid, iron, potassium and calcium. Like garlic, chives contain allicin, a powerful antioxidant responsible for garlic’s (and chive’s) telltale bite. It also supports our circulatory and immune systems.

• Kale, along with other leafy greens like spinach, is a tremendous source of vitamin K. Vitamin K plays a role in blood clotting and bone health. (As a side note, the word kale appears in the Scottish expression “to be off one’s kail”, when someone is too sick to eat. So eat your kale and hopefully you won’t be!)

• Although I was not a fan of green peas growing up, they have grown on me. They have a subtle sweetness. They also have impressive nutritional credentials, including being high in fibre, high protein, and a rich source of phytonutrients.

What are the ingredients in this spring vegetable pasta?

This spring vegetable pasta recipe explodes with the bold flavours of some of the best foods that spring has to offer. They are dressed with a somewhat peppery and definitely nutritious homemade pesto of chives, kale, almonds, garlic, olive oil and lemon juice. Not a traditional pesto, mind you, as it doesn’t contain Parmesan cheese but I like it just fine.

Many of these foods can be found locally too: farm-fresh asparagus is available now; chives are coming into their own and these came from my garden; and kale and spinach are both great to enjoy in spring and fall because they thrive in cooler temperatures.

I have used brown rice pasta in this spring vegetable pasta salad. It is gluten-free, provides protein and fibre and has a chewy texture that I think works well here. Any kind will do, but I recommend shapes like spirals or penne because they do an effective job of catching the flavourful and peppery pesto dressing.

Here’s the recipe for this spring vegetable pasta (and see below for a few more helpful tips!)

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Spring Vegetable & Greens Pasta with Chive-Kale Pesto Dressing

Author Ashleigh Grange

Ingredients

For the Salad

• 1 cup chopped fresh spinach
• 1/2 cup frozen peas which can be steamed or even added to the pasta pot for a minute or two before the pasta is drained – you just want to warm them
• 6 medium asparagus or barely 3/4 cup, trimmed, lightly steamed and cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1-2 slices of red onion minced
• 1/2 red pepper chopped
• 2 cups of brown rice pasta spirals

For the Dressing

• 2 oz . kale or about 1 3/4 cup of packed, rinsed and thick stalks trimmed
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup almonds soaked for 2-3 hours beforehand
• 1 oz . fresh chives – you can use up to half of this if you prefer a more subtle or about 3/4 cup of packed leaves, less pungent spiciness
• 1/2 to 1 garlic clove depending on how peppery you like it
• 1/2 cup olive oil it is worth using a higher quality one!

Instructions

1. Cook the pasta until al dente. Once the pasta is cooked, reserve a cup of the cooking water and set aside. Rinse the pasta in cold water and add to a salad bowl.
2. Add the remaining salad ingredients.
3. To make the dressing, add all ingredients to a food processor or high-powered blender. Depending on how thick the mixture is, add 3-6 tablespoons of reserved cooking water to thin. The texture should be fairly loose but still thick like a pesto.
4. Pour the pesto dressing over the salad and mix thoroughly to combine. You can add an additional 1-2 tablespoons of cooking water if the dressing is not mixing smoothly.

Any more tips for making this recipe?

For the chive and kale pesto dressing, I had at least 1/3 of the recipe left over. I recommend starting with half the dressing and incorporating it before you decide whether to add the rest. You’ll see how peppery you like it. And this will depend on whether you used the full amount of chives or not.

You can add more cooking water to keep the pesto loose.

Another quick kitchen tip that might be helpful: to keep delicate herbs like chives from bruising when you cut them, use sharp kitchen scissors instead of a knife to cut them.

So make this spring vegetable pasta as a light lunch or side salad this week to enjoy some of spring’s powerhouse ingredients.

Here’s to spring!

In the meantime, tell me… what’s your favourite spring vegetable or food?

Life is a plate… Eat up!

Ashleigh