Chicken Pesto Pasta

A few weeks ago, I had this pesto at Souen, and I loved it. I was craving pesto even more so afterwards. The restaurant doesn’t use any dairy, but I didn’t give it a second though at that time. It wasn’t until afterwards that I would need to find a pesto recipe that didn’t have cheese in it. I did see a few sites that used different types of nuts as well as a 1:1 ratio of nutritional yeast instead of cheese, but most recipes used pine nuts…something I usually didn’t have on hand, and something I didn’t want to buy just for pesto.

I saw Branny’s recipe for vegan pesto, and knew it was the one I had to try. It tasted a lot like the one I had at the restaurant, except a little saltier. I think it was because I didn’t use quite as much basil as the recipe called for…more like 2.5 cups, but the consistency, taste, and texture was all there!

Then I first showed Gary the picture from the restaurant, he thought pesto looked kind of gross, but once he tried it, he thought it was great too!

Chicken Pesto Pasta
printable recipe

ingredients:
2 in bone leg quarters (or any cooked chicken part will work)
salt
olive oil
8 oz pasta (I used linguini)

for the pesto: recipe adapted from Branny Boils Over, originally form Vegan with a Vengeance
1/4 cup toasted nuts (pecans, walnuts, or pine nuts) I used walnuts
3 cups packed basil leaves
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp coarse salt
1/4-1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup nutritional yeast (or substitute grated parmesan or Romano cheese)
2 tsp lemon juice (about half a lemon)

directions:

Trim fat and remove skin from chicken. Separate leg and thigh parts. You should have 4 pieces now. Pat dry with paper towels. Rub salt liberally onto chicken pieces. Steam for 20-30 minutes or until fully cooked through. (You can also bake or grill or whatever.)

Meanwhile, combine all the ingredients for the pesto in a food processor and pulse until desired consistency.

During last 10 minutes of cooking the chicken, boil the pasta.

Let chicken cool for a few minutes. Cut into pieces, save the bones for stock or soup.

Drain pasta, drizzle a little olive oil to coat the pasta. Add in chicken and pesto, toss to coat evenly.

Serve and enjoy!