This artichoke pesto pasta recipe is a quick and fresh spring meal. It combines canned artichoke hearts, chickpeas, and a parsley and walnut pesto with your favorite pasta for a speedy weeknight dinner. Customize it to your liking with additional vegetables.
Here's why you'll love this artichoke pasta dish:
- This recipe uses canned artichoke hearts, which are quick and convenient for a weeknight pasta dish. (Though jarred and frozen artichoke hearts also work.)
- In this recipe, we'll create a pesto made with fresh parsley rather than the traditional basil. This is a more logical choice for spring when good quality basil has yet to appear in gardens and markets. Parsley is not only easier to find throughout the year, but it also tends to be a more economical herb, too.
- Speaking of being economical, this pesto uses walnuts instead of the traditional pine nuts. Walnuts are not only more affordable, but they taste great in a pesto. In fact, I don't often use pine nuts in my pesto. Walnuts, sunflower seeds, pistachios, and cashews are all good alternatives that I often have on hand.
Jump to:
If out-of-the-box pesto sounds good to you, go check out this pasta dish, where I made a pesto with mint and pistachios. This vegan pesto pasta salad includes arugula and cashew pesto, while this Orzo Pasta Salad uses the more traditional basil pesto. Pesto is a great way to get creative and enjoy fresh herbs and produce throughout the year.
🧀Ingredients
Here's everything you need to make this artichoke pesto pasta.
Key Ingredients
- Artichoke hearts - Canned artichoke hearts are inexpensive, easy to find, and available year-round, which makes them a great addition to this pasta dish. You can also use frozen or marinated artichoke hearts. Just keep in mind that the marinated ones are already flavored and packed in oil - which isn't a bad thing, but give them a taste first and make sure you like them before adding them to the recipe.
- Parsley - Affordable and easy to find in the store while prolific in the garden from early spring, parsley is the base herb for the pesto in this recipe.
- Chickpeas - For some extra protein.
- Walnuts - The nutty component of the pesto
- Pasta - I use spaghetti to make this dish, but any pasta will do just fine.
- Grated parmesan - A key ingredient for the pesto.
See the recipe card below for the full list of ingredients and quantities.
🌿Wait, I thought this was artichoke pesto?
This dish tosses artichokes with pesto and pasta. It's not for artichoke pesto. If you're looking for that, see my note under variations below for how to go about it. I went in this direction because I prefer the artichokes in visible pieces with the pasta. Compared to pureeing them in the pesto, I think they add more substance and visual appeal in their whole form while still imparting the same overall flavor.
🥦Substitutions & Variations
With more veggies - Add 1 - 2 cups of chopped vegetables such as asparagus or broccoli. Add to the pan and cook until nearly tender before adding the artichoke hearts and chickpeas.
With artichokes as part of the pesto - If you want the artichokes to be part of the pesto rather than added to the pasta dish, you can include the drained and rinsed artichokes in the food processor when making the pesto and use just 1 cup of parsley. If the pesto is too thick, loosen it with more olive oil. If it comes out too thin, add more cheese and nuts. Depending on the brand and style (canned, jarred, frozen, etc.) of the artichokes you're using, this will vary a bit.
With other pesto ingredients - Pesto is so easy to customize. If you don't want to use parsley, try basil or cilantro. Not into walnuts? Use pine nuts, sunflower seeds, or cashews. Swap out the herbs and nuts as you like. Just use the same amount as the original.
Gluten-free - Simply use your favorite gluten-free pasta
🔪Instructions
How to make pesto pasta with artichokes.
- Step 1: Drain and rinse the artichoke hearts and give them a rough chop.
- Step 2: Toast the walnuts in a pan over low heat, tossing occasionally, for about 5 minutes or until lightly browned.
- Step 3: Add the parsley, garlic, grated parmesan, and walnuts to a food processor. Process until roughly chopped.
- Step 4: Slowly stream in the olive oil and process until you have a smooth pesto sauce.
- Step 5: Cook the pasta al dente according to the package directions in a pot of well-salted boiling water. Drain, reserving a couple of cups of pasta water.
- Step 6: Heat the chopped artichokes and can of drained chickpeas in a pan with olive oil until warm.
- Step 7: Add the pasta to the pan, along with the pesto.
- Step 8: Use tongs to toss everything together, adding splashes of pasta water, as needed, to thin the pesto into a sauce that easily coats the pasta. Serve warm, topped with additional cheese and parsley.
🍲Top Tip
Save that pasta water! Using pasta water to create a sauce is a classic technique. It works so well because you get the starchy flavor infused in the water as the pasta is cooked, and because your water is generously salted, the saltiness also seasons your sauce. Adding pasta water does make a difference. If I know I'll have leftovers, I save some water in the fridge and add it to the pasta when reheating.
🍽Equipment
Food processor - This recipe calls for a food processor to make the pesto. My favorite processor is this one from Cuisinart. But a high-powered blender could also do the job. Or, if you don't mind a bit of work, pesto can also be made using a mortar and pestle, which is actually the traditional method. Here's more on that and some other interesting methods for making pesto.
🥡Storage
Store the pasta in an airtight container in the fridge for up to four days.
💭FAQ
Vegetables, pasta, and pesto are a great match. You can include asparagus, broccoli, snow peas, artichokes, bell peppers, zucchini, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and sundried tomatoes.
Traditional Italian pesto is made with basil. However, you can make pesto variations with other herbs, such as parsley (like in this recipe), cilantro, and mint. Similarly, you can use nuts other than pine nuts.
Artichokes pair well with lemon, garlic, pasta, grains, chicken, shrimp, cheese, pizza, bell peppers, tomatoes, and herbs like parsley, basil, and oregano.
📖 Recipe
Artichoke Pesto Pasta
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: about 6 servings 1x
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
This artichoke pesto pasta recipe is a quick and fresh spring meal. Simply combine canned artichoke hearts and chickpeas with a parsley and walnut pesto and your favorite pasta for a speedy weeknight dinner.
Ingredients
- 1 pound spaghetti or other pasta
- kosher salt
- 2 cups packed parsley leaves
- 1 (14-ounce) can artichoke hearts
- 1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas
- 1 lemon
- ⅓ cup walnuts
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1 clove garlic
- ½ cup, plus 1 tablespoon olive oil
Instructions
- Cook the pasta. Set a pot of water to boil on the stove. When boiling, season well with several large pinches of salt. Then add your pasta and cook until al dente. When done, drain but reserve at least 1 cup of the pasta water and set aside.
- Prep the ingredients. Remove the stems from the parsley. Drain and rinse the artichokes, then give them a rough chop. Drain the chickpeas. Zest and juice the lemon.
- Make the pesto. Put the walnuts in a large pan and lightly toast over low heat for 3-5 minutes until fragrant. Add them to your food processor with the parsley, parmesan, and garlic. Run the processor and slowly stream in the ½ cup of olive oil. Continue processing until smooth.
- Assemble the pasta. In the now empty pan, heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Add the artichoke hearts and chickpeas to the pan and cook for about 5 minutes just to warm up. When hot, toss the pasta, pesto, lemon juice, and zest. Stir to coat the pasta in the sauce and incorporate the artichoke and chickpeas. Add the reserved pasta water, as desired, to thin the pesto and create a sauce-like consistency.
- Serve. Divide the pasta into plates and top with additional cheese, parsley, and nuts, if you like.
Notes
Rinse the artichokes before chopping to remove any salt that may have been added.
If you don't have two cups of parsley leaves, feel free to include some stems. You'll be pureeing them into pesto anyway.
To save some time, you can prep the pesto a couple of days in advance.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Pasta
- Method: Stove top
- Cuisine: Italian
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