15 Pesto Pasta Recipes That Bring Northern Italy to Your Dinner Table (2024)

FAQs

What do Italians do with pesto? ›

Italian Tradition

Pesto is the perfect sauce to enjoy with a dish of trofie (the traditional Ligurian short pasta), lasagna, potato gnocchi or as a topping for a bowl of minestrone. It can be mixed into tomato sauce to enhance the flavor of pasta dishes or used with fish fillets to make them more appetizing.

Veggies. Sauteed Zucchini Recipe, Roasted Mushrooms, or Roasted Broccoli and Carrots would be scrumptious paired with this pasta. Meatballs. Turkey Meatballs or Chicken Meatballs would be ideal for a protein addition.

Strictly speaking, pesto is a generic term for anything made by pounding; that is why the word is used for several pestos in Italy. Nonetheless, pesto alla genovese remains the most popular pesto in Italy and the rest of the world.

This fresh and fragrant pasta sauce is served uncooked, so choose a pasta shape that won't overwhelm it. Similar to oil-based sauces, pesto is served best with longer cuts of pasta, like the corkscrew shape of Fusilli. Pesto works best with Bucatini, Capellini, thinner Spaghettini, and Fettuccine.

Today, pesto Genovese is the condiment that best represents Genovese and Ligurian cuisine, and this is why the most famous pesto in Genoa, produced by the Rossi family since 1947, is distributed throughout Italy and in over 15 countries worldwide, sold to restaurants, pizzerias, delicatessens and stores of all sizes, ...

This type of pesto hails from the Emilia-Romagna, a northern region of Italy that contains the cities of Bologna, Modena, Ravenna, Parma and more. This pesto is a far cry from Pesto alla Genovese, but it's still absolutely pesto!

In Liguria, pesto is usually eaten with trenette (a pasta shape similar to linguine) or trofie (short pasta made by rolling and twirling small pieces of dough by hand). However, I also love it with potato gnocchi.

What Kind of Cheese Should I Use? I used fresh mozzarella because I love the way it melts, but you can use block or grated mozzarella in its place (that's usually more affordable as well). Other types of cheese that would work great with pesto are: smoked mozzarella, gruyere, swiss, brie, or white cheddar.

Pesto, on the other hand, flourishes best when paired with thinner noodles, such as spaghetti and linguine, and with shapes that have plenty of twists, grooves, curls, and troughs. Fusilli is not only one of the most well-known pasta shapes; it's also the UK's most popular and our ultimate shape to use with pesto.

Barilla Pasta is Italy's largest dry pasta brand and dominates the European and American markets. With a long-standing reputation as one of the best Italian pasta brands in the United States, Barilla's products are made with high-protein durum wheat flour, ensuring top quality.

What town in Italy is famous for pasta? ›

FUN FACT. Gragnano is actually known as The City of Pasta! Since the late 1700s, the tiny town of Gragnano has been famous for its pasta.

Barilla. Barilla is the world's largest pasta producer with the largest gross profit in Italy. It is also considered Italy's favorite pasta.

Some good vegetables to put in pasta with pesto sauce include cherry tomatoes, zucchini, bell peppers, mushrooms, and spinach. These vegetables not only add flavor and texture to the dish, but they also provide essential nutrients and vitamins.

PESTO SHOULD NEVER BE “COOKED”. If you cook Pesto Sauce, you change the make up of the fresh basil and cause it to turn darker in color. It is best to warm it up and use it at room temperature. If it needs to be thinned out, you can do so by adding a little water, chicken stock, cream or white wine.

In the Middle Ages, Italians mashed walnuts with garlic, a mix that was especially popular among Liguria's seafaring culture: The paste was thought to help ward off sickness during long sea voyages. Still, the most famous pesto—and the one we tend to think of when we hear the word—is pesto alla genovese.

Pesto is one of the sauces of the Italian culinary tradition typical of the Liguria region, a jagged arch on the sea, cradle of aromatic herbs. The original pesto is a cold sauce made from basil and cheese, enriched with pine nuts, garlic and extra virgin olive oil.

The Italian Riviera is the home of pesto, as the basil, the base of pesto, really likes the local climate. Basil is mixed with parmigiano (parmesan cheese), garlic, olive oil and pine nut. You can eat it on pasta, gnocchi, focaccia or pizza, but I also love it on a simple toast.