20 Pesto Pasta Recipe Ideas That Are Packed With Flavor

Whether you make it from scratch using fragrant basil (or leafy greens) or rely on your go-to premade version, a pop of pesto never disappoints—especially when it’s paired with al dente pasta and all your favorite add-ins! So, we've rounded up all our favorite ideas for this classic pairing, starting with Tyler's simple take. It comes together with just 5 ingredients (plus a little salt and pepper) and boasts tons of flavor. He tosses it with delicate angel hair pasta for a flavorful side that's perfect with chicken, seafood or steak.

Valerie whips up an ultra-smooth pesto by combining all of her ingredient in the blender. The resulting sauce is so silky and decadent, this might just become your new, go-to method for making pesto!

The basil-and-pine-nut pesto for this dish has a secret ingredient that makes it extra rich and creamy: Greek yogurt. Simply pulse a little it in along with the Parmesan cheese and olive oil.

Each of these noodle roll-ups has just the right amount of filling and bakes in a fraction of the time a traditional deep-dish lasagna takes.

Katie upgrades pasta salad by swapping noodles for gnocchi and dressing them in a creamy, mayo-based pesto sauce. What's not to love about that?!

Giada upgrades simple pasta with green beans and peas that she sautees in fragrant shallots. After giving everything a toss in pesto, she tops the pasta with dollops of creamy ricotta cheese for a 15-minute dish that's sure to please.

Sure, this pasta salad is loaded with festive holiday color, but we'd gladly eat it any day of the year! The pesto can be made three days ahead and refrigerated in an airtight container, making this an easy dish to whip up for dinners, parties, cookouts and more.

The key to getting your pesto to evenly coat the pasta, potatoes and green beans is to save a little bit of your starchy pasta cooking water. It will bind everything together and guarantee lots of basil flavor in every bite.

This quick-and-simple pasta dish comes together with just a handful of ingredients, making it a great go-to for any occasion. Instead of basil, we sub spinach and mint when making the pesto — for a variation that's easy enough for weeknights yet impressive enough for guests.

Sunny's decadent baked pasta uses frozen raviolis and premade pesto — which gives you plenty of time to twist pieces of premade pizza dough into savory garlic knots for the topping!

Add a peppery kick to traditional pesto with arugula. Pine nuts bring rich, buttery flavor (and texture) to the pasta of your choice.

If you've ever opened up a box of lasagna noodles to find many of them broken and wondered what to do, this is the recipe for you. Break up the rest of the noodles (yep, you read that right) and use them to make a hearty dinner tossed with a bright and flavorful spin on classic pesto sauce.

A quick and easy upgrade for pasta with homemade pesto? Replace some of the Parmesan cheese with a fragrant truffle pecorino.

Use three cups of kale, plus toasted walnuts for this easy weeknight pasta.

Fans call Ina's 5-star recipe "light and filling", "soooo delicious" and "exactly what I was looking for". Sounds like a winner to us!

Kale adds a rich, earthy note and brilliant green color to this hearty pesto. This makes about 1-1 1/2 cups pesto, which would also be good on fish, chicken, pork, or steak.

Sun-dried tomatoes add a pop of color to this simple romaine-Asiago pesto.

Low in cholesterol and high in vitamins, broccoli packs this pesto with extra nutritional value. Using walnuts instead of the traditional pine nuts is less expensive, subtracts calories and adds fiber.

Ree keeps a lot of the classic pesto ingredients for this recipe (basil, Parmesan cheese, garlic and olive oil) but swaps the pine nuts for shelled pistachios. It's a great substitution when you don't have pine nuts on hand.