When all you need is a comforting bowl of pasta, make it this avocado zucchini pesto pasta. Easy, satisfying, secretly packed with the veggies, and so creamy!

Need some comforting pasta? Make it this avocado zucchini pesto pasta. Easy, satisfying, secretly packed with the veggies, and so creamy!

I get that fall is a big deal and whatnot, but I’m still not over my summer basil plant. It’s still growing strong so you know what that means–a new batch of pesto every week. And when I have a new batch of pesto, that means pesto pasta for a quick and easy lunch.

Here I took my cashew kale pesto and blended it with some avocado and zucchini to take it up a notch and get some more plants in there. It truly astounds me how many plants you can fit into a bowl without it looking like it. Zucchini is well-known for adding nutrients to anything without changing it’s taste and avocado is well-known for making everything instantly creamy, so you can probably guess what avocado zucchini pesto tastes like.

I used Eat Banza’s rigatoni for this, but you can use any pasta you’d like! You can also use any pesto you’d like, but I’ll leave the recipe for my kale cashew pesto here.

The Rundown

1. Make some bomb pesto. All you do is blend all the ingredients in a small food processor. Make sure your food processor is small so that it’s easy to blend! My recipe uses hemp seeds at the end, which I thought was fabulous for texture.

2. Saute some zucchini.

3. Blend some pesto, zucchini, and avocado.

4. Add your revamped avocado zucchini pesto to the pasta with any other sauteed veggies. I love mushrooms in mine!

Avocado Zucchini Pesto Pasta

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Servings 2

Ingredients

8 oz. pasta of choice
¼ cup pesto of choice
¼ avocado
½ medium zucchini, sauteed
2 mushrooms, sliced
½ tsp paprika
¼ tsp black pepper

Kale Cashew Pesto

1 cup kale
1 cup basil
2 small garlic cloves
½ cup toasted cashews
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp nutritional yeast optional, but recommended
¼ tsp sea salt
1 tbsp hemp seeds

Instructions

For the pesto, process kale, basil, garlic, and cashews first. Then add olive oil, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, sea salt, and hemp seeds. Add more hemp seeds until you reach your desired consistency (I only added 1 tbsp).
Cook pasta to package instructions and save a little bit of pasta water.
Saute zucchini and mushroom in a little olive oil over medium heat for a few minutes until zucchini is cooked.
In a small processor, blend ¼ cup of pesto, zucchini, and avocado.
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add ¼ cup + 2 tbsp pasta water and all the pesto. (This is so the pesto thins out and is easy to combine with the pasta.)
Reduce heat. Add pasta and mushrooms. Combine well. Serve with some avocado and dried herbs!