Pesto Cream Sauce

This Creamy 5 Minute Pesto Sauce is awesome: just simmer the pesto and cream until a thick sauce forms! It goes perfectly with pasta or fish.

Here’s a grand gesture in the kitchen: 5 minutes creamy pesto sauce! Did you know that you can cook pesto and cream and it thickens into a sauce? There’s no need to prepare a roux like you would a regular cream sauce and whisk anxiously to make sure it doesn’t burn. Just put these two ingredients in a pot and you’re done! They have a lovely light green sauce that’s perfect for pasta and even better drizzled over salmon or grilled fish. Here’s the quick and easy method for this pasta sauce: Then memorize it and make it multiple times.

Ingredients for creamy pesto sauce

Pesto cream sauce is literally two ingredients plus salt. (If you’re a purist, you’d call it three ingredients. We get it.) In fact, the ingredients are so simple the recipe name says it all. What you need for a pesto cream sauce:

• Basil pesto
• whipped cream
• Salt

The pesto to use

Homemade pesto is better! This recipe was born from the mound of fresh basil we had from our garden basil plant. Traditional pesto uses pine nuts, but they can be expensive and harder to find at the grocery store. We like to make pesto with other nuts, like cashew pesto and walnut pesto.

Otherwise, take your favorite store-bought brand. If you’re using store-bought pesto, remember that there’s a lot of variation between different brands. Be sure to find a quality brand with a light, fresh flavor (some can be bland and flat).

How to make a creamy pesto sauce… in 5 minutes!

Yes, you only need 5 minutes for this easy recipe! In fact, you hardly need to cook. Here’s what to do:

• Place the ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat.
• Stir occasionally and heat until sauce begins to thicken, about 3 to 4 minutes. Just as it starts to bubble, it starts to get thick and shiny.
• Here’s the important part: remove it from the heat immediately once it’s thickened! Otherwise, it can start to turn brown and become very sticky.

Can you make healthy cream sauce with milk?

Big question! In fact, our standard Parmesan Cream Sauce recipe is made with milk instead of cream. Whipped cream is high in calories, so we wouldn’t call it a health food. It’s more of a summertime treat with your favorite pesto.

But you can lighten it up with milk! Use the same amount of whole milk or 2% milk. The sauce won’t be as rich, but it will still taste good.

How to serve creamy pesto sauce with pasta

This pesto cream sauce recipe makes 1 cup of sauce, enough to coat 8 ounces of pasta. You might find it works with more pasta: we just like it when ours are tasty and sassy. You can use any type of pasta, from long pasta like linguine and bucatini to short pasta like penne and cavatappi. Here are some things to keep in mind when serving with pasta:

• Mix it up in a bowl. Just like with our pesto spaghetti, we like to mix the pesto and pasta together in one bowl rather than in a pot of hot pasta. Pasta can get too sticky and dry in a pasta pot.
• Not add the pasta water. In our pesto pasta recipes, we usually add a little pasta water to create a smooth sauce to coat the pasta. You don’t have to do that here because the pesto is already diluted with the cream.
• After adding the pesto cream sauce, season with salt. The amount of salt required depends on what pesto you’re using and how much salt you salted into the pasta water before cooking (we recommend salting the water liberally). Taste the noodles, then add just enough kosher salt until it bursts.

This sauce is also great with seafood like baked salmon or seared scallops.

More recipes with pesto

Are you as crazy about pesto as we are? Good. Here are some of our best pesto recipes that are most inspired by a batch of summer basil:

• Pesto Spaghetti Here’s the trick to evenly coating the creamiest pesto spaghetti in a silky sauce! A quick and easy dinner.
• Shrimp Pesto Salted Basil Pesto is a natural pairing with succulent shrimp; Serve it with pasta or rice for an easy dinner idea.
• Pesto Mac and Cheese A strudel of basil pesto adds so much flavor to this classic comfort food!
• Pesto Pizza Top our famous pizza dough with basil pesto and thinly sliced ​​tomatoes.

This creamy pesto sauce recipe is…

Vegetarian and gluten free.