Last week when I made the Pesto Tortellini Soup I had on my menu, I ended up with 7 ounces minus 1/4 cup of pesto left over. The next night we had Easy Peasy Bean Tacos, which resulted in a half a container of leftover grape tomatoes. The next night (are you liking this painful play-by-play?) I swung by the store on the way home from a playdate and saw a $2 package of fresh fettuccine that inspired me. I grabbed a half pint of cream, a package of sliced mushrooms and went home to throw dinner together as quickly as possible.
The result was a simple and fast recipe that was molto delicioso. The best part? My girls ate ALL of their dinner and then some. And I have another meatless recipe to add to the arsenal.
Buon appetito!
Creamy Pesto Fettuccine with Mushrooms & Tomatoes
Quick, easy, and super yummy!
Author: Jane Maynard
Recipe type: Main Dishes, Pasta
Ingredients
- 9 oz. fresh fettuccine (or whatever past you have on hand)
- 8 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced
- Couple handfuls of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
- 2-4 garlic cloves, minced or smashed through a garlic press
- ½ pint cream
- Prepared pesto (I used 7 ounces MINUS ¼ cup since the pesto was leftover from the soup recipe, but I think a 7-ounce package will work just fine”¦no need to subtract out that ¼ cup”¦although you could make the Pesto Tortellini Soup the same week to coordinate!)
- 2 handfuls fresh grated parmesan cheese, plus some for garnish
- ½ to 1 teaspoon salt (to taste)
- Olive oil for sautéing
Instructions
- Prepare pasta according to package directions. Drain and drizzle with a bit of butter or olive oil to prevent sticking.
- While waiting for water to boil for the pasta, start working on the other stuff. Sauté the mushrooms in a tablespoon or two of olive oil until softened. Add garlic and tomatoes and sauté a few minutes more. Add cream, pesto sauce and salt; simmer to reduce until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Add parmesan cheese and stir until melted.
- Pour sauce over pasta and serve, sprinkled with fresh grated parmesan cheese and fresh chopped basil if you have it.
- A few things I think would be good to add, but I haven’t actually tried yet: a shallot sautéed with the mushrooms, spinach, or white beans.
Hi! My name is Jane Maynard and you've landed yourself on my blog, This Week for Dinner™. Every Sunday I share a weekly menu...and count on you to share yours! You'll also find other deliciousness that I hope you'll enjoy!
this is so going on my menu plan for next week, I’ll also be posting my menus again here 🙂
I’ll let you know how the cream switch out works 🙂
This sounds fabulous! I love a meatless pasta – definitely bookmarked!
Mary xo
Delightful Bitefuls
It looks delicious, I will have to try it sometime, unfortunately some of my family won’t eat food with tomatoes they can identify and no one but me likes mushrooms. I will make it though, for me!
I am definitely going to give this one a try! Sounds great! I wish my basil plants had done better this year so I could make a big batch of pesto and freeze it. I can’t do store bought since 99% of them have pine nuts in them and I’m allergic. I usually sub walnuts or almonds when I make it.
Yum! This looks really good! I have really gotten into cooking with pesto lately.. it is soo delish. I dont know why I have over looked it for years.
Oh how I LOVE pesto. And this looks SO good!! There’s nothing not to like in this dish and it looks so pretty, too 🙂
I’ll have to try this. I find it so satisfying to make somtething delicious while using up things I already have in the fridge!
chris, I am so with you – it is SO satisfying to use up stuff lying around! I love that!!!
You had me at MUSHROOM
ha! 🙂
nate actually is the opposite…I knew it was risky making a dish featuring mushrooms, but even he loved it! 😉
We had this for dinner tonight, and loved, loved, loved it. This one is certainly a keeper. Thanks!
I LOVE hearing that! yea! 🙂
I made this recipe for lunch yesterday and it was so so delicious, we loved it so much. Thank you…
This was amazing! i added some chicken breast, and it was wonderful! Thank you so much for sharing!!
so glad it was good – and chicken sounds delish with this dish!
What do you mean by “cream”?
whipping cream or heavy cream will both work great. I would not use half and half, but any kind of cream will work – the recipe is forgiving! 🙂
years later … but I just found this page 🙂
I add shrimp, use 1/2 & 1/2 instead of cream and sometime I add sausage but that doesn’t work for a lot of folks. Also really good with some greek olives and/or sundried tomatoes. If I rock out with cherry tomatoes I blister them in a cast iron and add them at the end.