Tuna Pesto Pasta

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Creamy tuna pesto pasta made with cupboard ingredients, ready in less than 15 minutes. And so delicious!

Really! This tuna pesto pasta dish is a life saver! No time to shop or to cook, but still want something healthy and thoroughly delicious? Try this recipe! All you have to do is to boil the noodles and mix a few ingredients in the meantime. Dinner is served.

Pesto pasta dishes are my go-to dish whenever I need a super quick dinner solution. I always have pesto in the fridge and in the freezer (mostly wild garlic pesto, but also lemon balm, basil, mint, carrot green, or parsley pesto), so I use it a lot.

Unless we want to eat a pure pesto noodle dish (which happens often enough), I add canned tuna, sometimes vegetables, sometimes anchovies, leftover chicken or ham, and so on.

What do you need?

Pasta:

• Whatever shapes you happen to have. Spaghetti or linguine are often recommended for pesto dishes, but fusilli or macaroni are perfect as well, the sauce will cling to them perfectly.

Tuna:

• Canned tuna.
• When it comes to taste, I prefer tuna in oil, the oil makes the dish slightly milder and creamier.
• But tuna in water is the healthier alternative and it tastes delicious as well.
• You decide both versions are great!

What kind of pesto to use?

• Basically, anything you like. I use basil or wild garlic pesto most of the time.
• Homemade is always best, but a jar of good quality bought pesto can be great as well. Just make sure you buy a brand you know is good.

Otherwise, you will need cream cheese, a little lemon juice, salt, and pepper to adjust the taste, and some freshly grated Parmesan to sprinkle on top.

How to make pesto tuna pasta?

• Set the water to boil. To make things even quicker, I fill the pot with really hot water from the tap or boil the water in a kettle before pouring it into the cooking pot.
• Add the pasta and cook according to the cooking instructions.
• In the meantime, mix the remaining ingredients in a small saucepan.
• Drain, but save about 250 ml/1 cup of the cooking water.
• Add about 125 ml/ ½ cup of the cooking water to the sauce ingredients in the pan.
• Heat gently for 1-2 minutes while stirring all the time. Add more cooking water to thin the sauce as desired.
• Mix the noodles with the sauce.
• Adjust the taste with lemon, salt, and pepper.
• Serve immediately with Parmesan.

Possible additions:

• Chili flakes
• Lemon zest
• Small, cooked broccoli florets
• Finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes in oil
• Crumbled feta instead of Parmesan

More quick pasta dishes:

• Creamy Vegetable Pasta
• Green Onion Pasta
• With Frozen Spinach
• With Eggplant Sauce
• Garlic Butter Noodles