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My daughter and I made this for friends last night. We made the recipe as written, using our cherry tomatoes and basil, and store-bought shiitake mushrooms. It was really delicious and I appreciate that it was less expensive to make than pine nut pesto.
Thanks for the vegan recipe! 🙂
Kelly
Here we are, in the thick of summer, and the farmers’ market is buzzing.
Also buzzing: me, after eating a big bowl of (VEGAN) summer veggie-loaded pasta with roasted garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice… and a little (large) dollop of thick and herby walnut pesto that’s borderline creamy and 100% addictive.
This recipe is:
- EASY.
- Vegan!
- Good hot or cold.
- Great as leftovers.
- Meant to work with almost any produce you bring home from the farmers’ market or happen to get in your CSA. Whatever you’ve got… we can work with it.
Farmers’ Market Pasta
First up: we roast those veggies.
Okay, I get it – summer avoidance of the oven and everything. So do you need to roast them? No.
You could grill them, saute them, or just leave them juicy, fresh, and raw.
HOWEVER, the best part about roasting them is that it provides you with a nice opportunity to make a little foil pack for some roasted garlic, and the roasted garlic is kind of next level here, so please factor that into your decision making.
Walnut Pesto
I’ve been a big fan of walnut pesto since way back here, and these last few weeks as I’ve been gorging myself on this pasta, it was so good to revisit this old flame.
It’s like a regular pesto, except with walnuts, and it’s a little thicker and creamier due to a run around in the food processor.
Can you use pine nuts? Can you add Parmesan? Can you skip the garlic? The answer to almost everything is yes. This recipes loves us all.
Pile these all in a bowl together and eat it hot, eat it cold, eat it with the pesto mixed in or dolloped off to the side.
This is summer, people! The rules are happy and loose, and everything will be delicious. ♡
Watch How To Make Our Farmers’ Market Pasta:
Farmers’ Market Pasta with Walnut Pesto
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Description
Farmer’s Market Pasta! Vegan, summer veggie-loaded pasta with roasted garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, and a big dollop of herby walnut pesto. THE BEST.
Ingredients
Farmers’ Market Pasta:
- 8 ounces pasta (half of a box of farfalle, rigatoni, penne, whatever you like)
- 6 cups fresh, seasonal veggies (see notes)
- 3 cloves garlic
- a drizzle of olive oil
- salt to taste
Vegan Walnut Pesto:
- 1 cup walnuts
- 1 1/2 cups tightly packed basil leaves (you can sub other greens if you don’t have enough basil)
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 very small clove of garlic
- juice of 1 lemon (just use half if it’s really juicy)
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Veggies: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Arrange the veggies on a rimmed baking pan. Toss with a little bit of olive oil and salt.
- And Roasted Garlic: Peel your garlic cloves. Place them in the center of a small piece of foil, drizzle with a little oil, and wrap it up. Place on the baking pan. Roast everything for 20-30 minutes (depends on what kind of veggies you’re using). When done, mash the roasted garlic so it makes a paste.
- Walnut Pesto: While the veggies roast, pulse pesto ingredients in a food processor.
- Pasta: Also while the veggies roast, cook pasta according to package directions. Drain, toss with oil, and set aside.
- Toss: Toss your noodles with the roasted garlic and veggies. Serve with a scoop of the pesto. Eat it all hot or cold. YUM.
Notes
Veggies: I use about 2 cups cherry tomatoes, 2 cups chopped asparagus, and 2 cups sliced mushrooms. All from the farmers’ market! Certain veggies will obviously cook in more or less time, so play it by ear.
Pasta Doneness: I recommend a softer, more well-cooked noodle in this recipe!
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition Facts
- Daily value: 52% Total Fat 40.8g
- Daily value: 0% Cholesterol 0mg
- Daily value: 19% Sodium 448mg
- Daily value: 20% Total Carbohydrate 55.5g
- Daily value: 25% Dietary Fiber 7g
- Sugars 6.6g
- Daily value: 31% Protein 15.6g
- Daily value: 9% Vitamin A 80.9µg
- Daily value: 28% Vitamin C 25.3mg
- Daily value: 27% Iron 4.9mg
- Daily value: 16% Potassium 733.6mg
- Daily value: 24% Phosphorus 300.2mg
Keywords: farmers market pasta, vegan pasta, vegan pesto
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our best healthy-ish recipes page. Check it out!
Tried this recipe last night. Delicious! We will definately make it again. We changed a few things – 1 lb. of pasta (used rigatoni), more garlic both in the pasta and in the pesto.
This was excellent.. I added fresh corn cut from the cob and a sprinkle of cotija.
This pasta is one of our family’s favorite! I have been making it since 2019 and every one of our friends and family members love it. I have even switched the aspargos with broccoli when we were living in Brazil and it tasted amazing amazing as well. You just can’t go wrong with it!
This pasta is legitimately good. The pesto somehow tastes like it has real parmesan in it. I make this at least once a month for our dairy free family and they all love it!
I love pesto made with fresh basil it is so delicious.
This was a fantastic weeknight dinner. I will be making this again for sure.
Glad to hear that, Matt! Thanks for the comment!
We LOVE this recipe. It’s perfect for our two vegetarians and the walnut pestso (always a favorite) is like icing on the cake!
Love your recipes❤️
So happy to hear that, Connie!
So glad I found this recipe. I’ve made this salad at least 10 times over this past summer and brought it to every garden party. It’s always a huge hit!! Adding roasted pumpkin today to bring some fall in.
Yummm! Glad you’ve enjoyed it!
OMG, I made this tonight, and it was SO good. I used cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini and corn. And I’ve never roasted garlic before. So easy and such a game changer with pasta.
Glad you enjoyed this, Janice!
I love pasta with olives and walnuts
definitely gonna try this recipe……
much love..
xoxo___
http://brunettedemands.com/
My bf is discovering that he has IBS so we’re always looking for recipes that are easy on the ingredients and healthy for us overall. He found this recipe and asked if I could make it. And I have to be honest.. Looking at the ingredients I wasn’t sure about the resulting flavor.. IF there would be any flavor at all. But once I made it we couldn’t get enough!!!!! I think the pesto is a little on the “grassy” side if left to the side to be added later, but we fixed that by premixing with the other ingredients and voilá! I’m a huge garlic fan and like garlic in everything so I “x2’d” the call for roasted garlic 🙂 Couldn’t be happier with this simple but flavorful recipe. We even added a twist later and added shrimp and shredded parmasean yum!
Thanks for sharing, Kim! 😊
Just made and finished having this for dinner. Wow! Delicious and so easy, this recipe is going to be in heavy rotation for summer. I used zucchini, asparagus, grape tomatoes, mushrooms, and an onion. Thanks so much!
Yum! Sounds delicious, Cindy!
I loved your post so much I became a fan of you, promise that you will continue to share such good and knowledgeable posts even further, we will be waiting for your post thank you.
This pasta is incredible!! The walnut pesto is so yummy, I ended up putting it on everything! Eggs, toast, you name it. The roasted veggies added a lot of complex flavor to a dish that’s so simple and easy to make. I love that this can be made throughout the year by switching out for seasonal veggies. It’s also super light and easy to have for lunch on the go because it still tasted amazing cold! Definitely adding this into the regular rotation
Glad to hear you enjoyed this, Nikki!
O M G! I just made this for lunch and it is divine! I used the same ingredients you did (I flash froze asparagus this summer) but I used a little of the pasta cooking water instead of more oil. I tossed all with the pesto throughout. So so good. Love your vegan recipes!
Great use of the asparagus you saved from the summer, Dottie! Yummy!
Made the farmers market pasta delicious. Cant wait to make it again with different winter veggies. It’s a great dish when your a pinch for time. I also used chickpea pasta as a substitute.
So glad to hear you enjoyed this, Scarlett!
Looks delish! I plan to use almonds instead of walnuts and wanted to add Parmesan – how much Parmesan would you recommend?
We’d recommend adding about 1/4 cup. 🙂
Thank you! I’m excited to try it tomorrow!!
Simply delicious. The pesto and the roasted garlic are the stars of this dish. I added shredded roasted chicken thighs to round out the meal because my husband is a meatatarian. Apparently, it wasn’t necessary. My husband, the consummate meat lover, told me that he’d eat this without any meat in it. I couldn’t believe my ears! What more, it also won the approval of the tiny human! This will certainly be added onto the meal rotation.
For anyone looking to add chicken all I did was add about 4 chicken thighs onto the sheet pan with the veggies, and season them with olive oil and salt like the veggies. Thighs bake at 425F in a half hour so if you have any veggies on the pan that need longer than that I’d remove the chicken at the half hour mark. Once cooled, I shredded the thighs and tossed them in with the veggies and pasta. Shredding some rotisserie chicken would probably work just as well if you don’t want to have to worry about cooking times.
So happy to hear this, Therese! Sounds like it was a win for the whole family! 🙂
What a great dinner! Quick, easy and incredibly delicious!
You had me at pesto! I’m a huge fan of using walnuts to make pesto as it’s so much cheaper (and flavorful) than using pinenuts. Thank you for this delicious recipe!
Love this! This looks SO Good!
This was yummy, thank you for posting!
Only problem was that I copied the vegetables in the photo and the mushrooms burned to a crisp of nothingness after 30 minutes lol.
I roasted 20 cloves of garlic in the foil though, and that turned out amazing!
Used kale and almonds for the pesto and it was delicious.
I shortcut the heck out of this awesome recipe! I use pre-made pesto that I’ve frozen in ice cube trays. I cut up the veggies earlier in the day as well as wrapped the garlic. I even cooked the pasta (but saved a little of the pasta water) When I came home, I threw the veggies into the oven. I mixed the pesto with the noodles and a bit of the pasta water and set on a very low burner. Dinner was on the table in 20 minutes, and it was FAB!!!
This was delicious! I used a mix of cherry tomatoes, summer squash, and carrots for the veggies. I subbed in almonds for the walnuts, because it’s what I had on hand. And I used the whole box of pasta because I sure do love pasta. The roasted garlic really does make this very special. It was a perfect Sunday night dinner and I can’t wait to eat leftovers for lunch this week.
I really want to make this. I don’t have access to basil except the little packages of fresh at the supermarket. What green stuff could I sub.
Spinach would be a great sub!
Made this tonight, it was wonderful. Used spinach as you recommended. Will definitely be making this again. Thank you so much for this recipe.