Healthy Pasta
Healthy Pasta is an easy 30 minute vegetable pasta skillet recipe with pesto, tomato, broccoli and Parmesan cheese. Follow simple video instructions and make tasty dinner even if you dont know how to cook.
Healthy Pasta is an easy 30 minute vegetable pasta skillet recipe with pesto, tomato, broccoli and Parmesan cheese. Follow simple video instructions and make tasty dinner even if you dont know how to cook.
- ground black pepper to taste
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 large garlic cloves minced
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
- 2 cups grape tomatoes cut in halves
- 1/3 cup sun dried tomatoes thinly sliced
- 2 cups any shape pasta uncooked
- 1 cup pasta water reserved
- 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp pesto divided
- 4 cups broccoli florets coarsely chopped
- 1/2 cup (2 oz) parmesan cheese grated
- Carbohydrate 13.9040909522017 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 1.82243306363399 g
- Fiber 4.87660912651614 g
- Protein 5.14217050171604 g
- Saturated Fat 0.234606869962267 g
- Serving Size 1 1 serving (204g)
- Sodium 114.826778590639 mg
- Sugar 9.02748182568561 g
- Trans Fat 0.509008342595937 g
- Calories 79 calories
Step-by-step
- Cook pasta as per package instructions. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water, draining the rest. Set aside.
- While pasta is cooking, get all ingredients ready. Preheat large deep skillet or a dutch oven on medium heat, add olive oil and garlic. Sauté for 30 seconds, stirring frequently. Add 1 tbsp pesto, tomatoes and stir. Cook for 1 - 2 minutes and stir again. Cook another 1 - 2 minutes. Move to one side of the skillet and make sure the empty side of is positioned directly over heat. Add 1 tbsp pesto and broccoli, stir and cook for 4 minutes, stirring once.
- Remove skillet from heat and add remaining 1/4 cup pesto, sun dried tomatoes, salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, pasta and pasta water. Stir gently and let flavours marinate for a few minutes. Do not cover because broccoli will become a mushy mess. I also like to add half Parmesan cheese in this step and the other half right before serving. Serve hot.
Standard pasta preparation typically involves boiling noodles in a generous volume of salted water before transferring them into a separate sauce, whereas this single-skillet method collapses those distinct stages into one vessel. That consolidation creates specific constraints that require careful management if you want to avoid soggy vegetables and unevenly cooked starches. Mastering the technique means understanding how pan capacity and thermal zones dictate the final texture of the dish.
- Use a wide-bottomed twelve-inch skillet or a heavy cast-iron Dutch oven rather than a standard saucepan to ensure the broccoli florets actually sear instead of steaming in crowded layers of moisture.
- Sauté the minced garlic in extra virgin olive oil over medium heat for precisely 30 seconds, watching carefully because garlic containing natural sugars burns rapidly past that window and turns unpleasantly bitter.
- Push the aromatics to one side of the pan to expose the bare metal directly to the heat source, allowing the initial addition of pesto and broccoli to char slightly over four minutes without turning into a mushy green puree.
- Reserve a full cup of cooking liquid before draining the pasta, then add it gradually off the heat along with the remaining 1/4 cup of pesto to create a glossy emulsion rather than a watery pool at the bottom of the bowl.
- Evaluate doneness visually by checking that the grape tomatoes have softened and collapsed just enough to release their juices, while the broccoli retains a vibrant green hue and slight crispness to the bite without requiring any probing instrumentation.
Proper execution of this method relies entirely on maintaining adequate surface area inside your cookware. Controlling moisture through targeted reduction steps keeps the vegetables distinct and flavorful rather than waterlogged.
