Recipe Testing : Broccoli "Pesto"

I absolutely love making pesto at home, but sometimes I want a sauce that is a bit lighter and more nutritious. The other night, I knew I wanted to make some combination of broccoli, pasta and chicken sausgage, but I didn’t want to just sautee all of the ingredients above. Instead, I made a pesto-like sauce (if you can call it that) out of the broccoli.

Ingredients:
- 2 large heads of broccoli
- 1 large glove of garlic
- Pasta (I like orecchiette for this because the “sauce” gets into the little shells)
- Red pepper flakes
- Salt/Pepper
- Olive oil
- Amylu Italian chicken sausage

Directions:
- Boil broccoli (with stems cut off) in a large pot of salted water. Cook it a little bit more than you would if you were preparing it normally
- Drain broccoli and then using a very sharp knife, cut the broccoli very finely.
- Combine garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes and broccoli into a sauce pan
- Cook on medium thoroughly until flavors have combined
- Cook pasta normally
- Grill chicken sausage and cut into small pieces
- Combine broccoli, pasta and sausage.
- Serve with parmesan cheese

Super simple! Its also a great way to sneak vegetables into a familiar pasta dish.

13 comments

  1. I make a broccoli pesto all the time (I have the recipe on my blog)…I still add the basil, garlic, a little olive oil and a little parm like normal pesto but I also add in cannelloni beans…it makes it nice and creamy and adds protein!

    Runway Chef

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