Featured comment
One of the most delicious pestos I’ve ever tasted!! Thank you so much! My husband (who’s typically big on meat) was gushing over this vegetarian pasta dish 😉
Jennifer
Today’s post is sponsored by LAND O LAKES®! I’m super excited to be using their new European Style Super Premium Butter in this recipe because –> 👅👅👅.
How To Make Our Mushroom Penne (1 MIN):
Some of you good people who are on this website right now are looking at this picture and just KNOWING.
You’re knowing that you and me and those buttery-soaked mushrooms on pasta with a heaping spoonful of flavor-packed earthy-vibed walnut pesto – all of us, we just belong to each other. Kumbaya forever.
Some of you good people, unfortunately, are not familiar with this kind of food bewitchery. You’ve chose not to be a part of Team Mushroom (😭) and right now you’re looking at those lil ‘shrooms and you’re tempted to bolt straight for the hills – like the broccoli hills or something or something more regular. Actually, probably more like the no-vegetable hills. Your mouse is already moving up to that little red x because you think you don’t like mushr- WAIT STAHHPPP. I understand that mushrooms can seem a little bit weird, but plz.
Be rational with yourself.
These are not your average mushrooms.
We’re talking about a whole different beast: deep golden brown mushrooms that are bathing their little selves in a sizzling pan of high quality LAND O LAKES® European Style Super Premium Butter. Like I said: Deep. Golden. Brown. If there was ever a time to join Team Mushroom, that time would be now.
So we’ve officially made our way into September, which means it’s fall, right? Come onnn JUST LET ME.
September means a lot of things to a lot of people. Back to school, busy season at work, mentally gearing up for the H word – what? don’t tell me you haven’t thought about the holidays yet. You know who you are – I’m talking to my twins out there who have paper chains going for the number of days until we can listen to Christmas music. When are you allowed to start? I’m a two-weeks-before-Thanksgiving kind of girl. Bjork finds ways to cope.
Most importantly, what this most lovely time of year means to me is earthy, rich, fall comfort food dishes like this are my 24/7/365. Wait, that doesn’t work. Just subtract the number of days from, like, go back and count the months before, er, but start in… ugh. You know what I mean.
I mean Simple Mushroom Penne with Walnut Pesto all day every day.
Would someone please put a soft, runny poached egg on this and eat it for breakfast so that we can truly, honestly, legitimately say this is an all day every day thing? You would basically be the winner of life.
You guys, I have some good news about the short ingredient list here. With an emphasis on the butter. WHAT ELSE IS NEW.
LAND O LAKES® European Style Super Premium Butter (which you can buy at just about any mainstream grocery store 🎉) is an extremely delicious butter that’s made with sweet cream. Angels singing, right? One of the ways it stands out from traditional butter is the fact that it has a higher fat content – 82% if you want to get specific – which means you get an extremely rich flavor and an extra-creamy texture and the butter in your recipes just shines.
If cooking with real butter is your thing (shout out to fall and winter approaching), check out the ideas on the LAND O LAKES® European Style Super Premium Butter Pinterest board. 👈
When you’re only working with three main ingredients – in this case, pasta, mushrooms, and that beautiful, luscious butter – you better make sure that each of those ingredients is top of the line in terms of quality and taste. Because you only get THREE.
And there is nothing more wonderful for your food-loving senses than a simple, minimalist ingredient combination where every flavor and texture just shines.
PLZ BE A MUSHROOM LUVR. This is happening. Right now.
Simple Mushroom Penne with Walnut Pesto
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 4–6, depending on how hungry you are! 1x
Description
Simple Mushroom Penne with Walnut Pesto – made with easy ingredients like Parmesan cheese, whole wheat penne, mushrooms, garlic, and butter. Vegetarian.
Ingredients
For the Pasta
- 8 ounces penne pasta
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 16 ounces fresh sliced mushrooms
- 1/4 cup grated or shaved Parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley, for topping
For the Walnut Pesto
- 1 cup walnuts
- 1 1/2 cups packed greens (spinach or basil are great – but keep some basil for a more traditional pesto flavor)
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 clove garlic
- juice of 1 lemon
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Cook the penne pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
- Toast the walnuts in a small sauté pan over low heat with no butter or oil – stir and shake the pan until the walnuts are fragrant and toasty (about 5 minutes). In a food processor, combine all the ingredients for the walnut pesto and pulse until mostly smooth.
- Heat the butter over medium heat in a wide skillet. Add the mushrooms and saute for 8-10 minutes, until the mushrooms are a deep golden brown. Add the penne pasta to the pan and stir to combine, adding Parmesan, salt, pepper, and fresh parsley or other herbs to taste.
- Divide the pasta between 4-6 bowls and top with a generous spoonful of the walnut pesto OR stir the walnut pesto directly into the pasta.
Notes
Nutrition is for 6 servings including pesto.
This recipe is high in fat primarily because of the walnuts, butter, and Parmesan cheese. If you’re looking to lighten it up a little bit, I’d start by omitting the Parmesan cheese.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: walnut pesto, mushroom penne, penne pasta with walnut pesto
Pinch of Yum has partnered with Land O’Lakes for an exclusive endorsement of Land O Lakes® European Style Super Premium Butter. This post is sponsored by Land O’Lakes.
PS. I used my food processor for this recipe – and I love it so much that I wrote this post showing off 12 Magical Ways To Use A Food Processor! ✨ I loooove that thing.
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our collection of easy pasta recipes. Check it out!
I am definitely making this for the weekend!
Absolutely love it !!
Thes best recipe I’ve ever tried !!!
This was the main course for a small supper (we have moved our main meal of the day to mid afternoon as we are retired). I made it exactly as written except I needed to use a little more oil and touch of water to mix the pesto and cut the recipe in half. I knew it was going to be to my taste, but was really surprised that my husband loved it. Definitely will make it again. Quick, easy, and delicious.
Delicious! Just made this for dinner tonight & it turned out phenomenal. I made it vegan by using nutritional yeast (instead of Parmesan cheese) & used olive oil (instead of butter). Thank you for a lovely meal. Xoxo.
Delicious! The ease of this recipe and minimal clean up, definitely going to be making this again! 🤤
Had to add a tad more oil to the pesto and used mini gnocchi instead of pasta.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! Looking forward to seeing what other treasures your wonderful website holds!
How much pesto would you recommend using? I have pre homemade thawed and want to give this a go! Thanks!!
We like to use a spoonful of pesto in each bowl, but you can add more if you’d like!
This is one of my favorite pasta recipes! I love the pesto
It looks delicious. Thank you for sharing.
Hi Lindsay, this really looks so delicious. I definitely gonna try it. Keep up the good work and stay safe!! Happy Weekend. Da Cipriano
Thank you! We hope you like it!
Looks fantastic, I’ll make it somewhere this week!
P.s. it’s not, in fact, vegetarian-friendly as Parm isn’t considered vegetarian.
This was my first time to make homemade pesto and I used fresh basil from my herb garden. All of this recipe is incredible!
I have found that white mushrooms soak up the most of the butter flavor, so they are my favorite! If you already love the little ‘shrooms then portabella would be lovely in this! Just my opinion 😉
This is the best thing I’ve ever made! Loved the addition of the pesto (plus, I’m not always a pesto fan, but this was sublime-walnuts=great. I used spinach/parsley/basil). I used a wok and the Parm stuck to the bottom. Not a big problem. Scraped some off, and the pan washed fine.
One of the most delicious pestos I’ve ever tasted!! Thank you so much! My husband (who’s typically big on meat) was gushing over this vegetarian pasta dish 😉
Glad to hear it, Jennifer!
This recipe is so delicious! Will be making it for years to come!
I love this recipe! I have made it at least 5 times already and making it again tonight. Adding some leftover chicken and a mix of mushrooms.
Hi, Lindsay!
I am planning to make this recipe this weekend, but I don’t have a food processor, though I do have a vitamix. Do you have any tips/experience with using a blender to make your pesto?
Thank you!
Awesome site! 🙂
Folliwing along for the sugar-free January & followed the link to this recipe, which looks awesome. Question: we have a lactose-intollerent gut residing in our household…would it be worth it to try the recipe with olive oil insteadof butter? Or would margarine be better? Or would it just be better to drool and move on?
This was so delicious!! Probably the best pest I’ve ever had. I made mine with Pecans and only basil because that is what I had on hand. Thanks so much for the recipe!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I love this dish it was delicious. I also love your dishes where did you get them?
Hi Kellie! The bowl is actually made by Lindsay’s father-in-law. You can check out his online shop here: https://www.larryostrompottery.com/
I am a natural disaster waiting to happen when I am making pasta… And my husband was really scared to try out my making of this recipe, because I had to halve the content for the fear of making too much of a disaster. In the end, he just loved it. 🙂 Thank you so much for sharing this recipe, I am going to make it again…
Glad to hear that!
We made this with my fiance and we couldn’t stop eating it! haha. It was sooo delicious. Mixed tastes of the Mashrooms on a butter and Pesto was amazing.
Thank you for sharing , it was a blast 🙂
This pasta is the only thing that made my absolutely terrible day better! Wow. So tasty, and cheap and easy to prepare. In case anyone else was wondering I only had pecans instead of walnuts and they were totally delicious in the sauce. As always, thanks POY for the mouth party.
Glad to hear it, Shannon!