If you’ve ever wanted a dish so simple to make and with very few ingredients, but with flavors and textures to satisfy even the most demanding gourmand, you’ve found it.
Cook’s notes
Pasta is cooked in salty water, drained and while hot, pesto is added. Pasta and pesto are tossed together and the bacon is added just before serving.
It’s a very simple dish, really, but because both pesto and bacon have highly nuanced flavors, once added to pasta, the result is simply superb.
Any pasta shape can be used to make this noodle dish but the ones with lots of grooves and crevices, like fusilli, work best to catch more pesto.
Homemade pesto was used here. If you have to use store-bought, choose the best quality pesto you can get your hands on.
Pasta with bacon and pesto
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon rock salt
- 1 handful pasta
- 1 to 2 tablespoons pesto
- 1 thick rasher bacon
- grated Parmesan
Instructions
- Boil three to four cups of water in a pot and stir in the salt.
- Add the pasta in the boiling water and cook until done but with still a little bite at the center (al dente, as the Italians say).
- Drain the pasta well.
- In a mixing bowl (or even in the same pot where you cooked the pasta), dump the drained noodles and add the pesto.
- Toss the pasta and pesto until blended.
- Add the bacon and toss.
- Transfer to a plate or shallow bowl and sprinkle with grated Parmesan before serving.
Chorizo and pesto rice