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Made this tonight – so easy and delicious! Love the heat from the pepper flakes with the fresh lemon and herb sauce. We do meatless Mondays and this will definitely be going in the rotation! Thanks for posting!
Allison Sundquist
Let me paint a picture for you: chewy bowtie pasta, coated in a light, salty, barely-creamy sauce, flecked with red pepper flakes and little bits of tender sautéed garlic kale. Oooo-eee! This kale pasta is yummy.
The general mood of this meal is just beautiful and simple, which is… kind of how I’m doing life lately. Taking things back to the basics, not overcomplicating, working in lots of lovely and wholesome ingredients (kale, we see you), going big on flavor and texture without long ingredient lists or hours of work.
Ingredients You Need
Let’s talk about the creamy-but-just-barely-there sauce that pulls this whole thing into a bowl of comfort food. It’s a food processor sauce (of course it is, this is how I operate) made of:
- pine nuts
- capers or olives
- herbs
- olive oil
- lemon juice
- salt
- pepper
The pine nuts make it a little creamy, so it’s like a less-herby pesto that has the perfect amount of sticky cling to hold the pasta and kale together.
How To Make Creamy Kale Pasta (Step-By-Step)
1
Make the Sauce.
Blend all your sauce ingredients together in a food processor until mostly smooth.
2
Boil the Pasta.
Cook the pasta until very al dente – it’ll finish cooking in the sauce! Reserve some pasta water before draining.
3
Sauté the Kale.
Cook down the kale in a skillet until bright green and softened. Add garlic and wine and let it sizzle!
4
Combine It All Together!
Add the pasta and pasta water and watch it get creamy and glossy. This is SO GOOD.
Optional Add-Ins
You can add shrimp or chicken to this creamy hot pot of pasta, or keep it vegetarian with some chickpeas or white beans or tofu, if that’s in your wheelhouse.
Plant-based or not, you have options, but pinky swear you actually don’t need to add anything. My whole family, toddler included, loved this just as it is!
Kale, you star, you! ♡
How To Make This Kale Pasta (Video)
Creamy Kale Pasta
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 3-4 1x
Description
This Creamy Kale Pasta is fresh, easy, and DELICIOUS. Chewy bowtie pasta, coated in a light, salty, barely-creamy sauce, flecked with red pepper flakes and little bits of tender sautéed garlic kale.
Ingredients
For the Sauce:
- 1/4 cup pine nuts
- 1/4 cup packed parsley
- 1/4 cup packed basil
- 2 tablespoons capers or pitted olives
- 1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt (less if using table salt)
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- juice and zest of half a lemon
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
For the Pasta:
- 8 ounces farfalle
- 2 tablespoons salted butter or vegan butter
- 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 2 stalks curly kale, stems removed, leaves chopped into bite-sized pieces
- 1/2 cup white wine, reserved cooking water, broth, or any combination
- red pepper flakes, to taste
- grated Parmesan (omit Parmesan if vegan)
Instructions
- Make the sauce: Pulse all sauce ingredients together until mostly smooth. (The sauce will be very salty. That’s okay, it’ll tone down once it mixes with everything.)
- Prep the pasta: Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
- Cook down the kale: While the pasta is cooking, melt the butter over medium heat in a large skillet. Add the garlic; sauté for 1-2 minutes. Add the kale; sauté for 1-2 minutes until bright green and softened. Add the wine, water, or broth; let it sizzle out for a minute.
- Finish: Add drained, cooked pasta and sauce. Toss to combine. Season to taste with Parmesan, lemon, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper. Fast, easy, yum.
Equipment
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Buy Now → - Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Pasta
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: kale pasta, creamy kale pasta, vegetarian pasta, vegan pasta
Tips For Success & FAQs
White beans, chicken, shrimp, or even garbanzo beans all work well here!
Walnuts or almonds would be my pick! Or sunflower seeds or pepitas could work well here for a nut-free option.
We’d recommend spinach in place of kale.
Add 1/4 cup of heavy cream to add some thickness and richness, if you want!
Time To Show You Off!
Whoa what a salt bomb a full tsp of salt for a few leaves. I had to throw the whole mixture away and broke out a jar of sauce instead.
violife vegan parm. delish. use it
Yum!!
DAMN this was good!!! I omitted the parsley and capers/olives (doubled the basil) and it was still incredible. Thank you!! Can never go wrong with POY recipes.
This is a very delicious and simple dinner for any night of the week. It boasts with flavor in my opinion. I followed the recipe but used veggie broth in place of the white wine. I will be adding this to my menu.
I made this for our family including young boys and it was delicious! I did add some salmon and shrimp we had in the freezer. The perfect spring meal served with asparagus on the side.
So good and easy to make.
Didn’t have any basil so just doubled up on flat leaf parsley. Sauteed sliced mushrooms and then added a can of navy beans just before the kale and garlic step.
I’m in love! Will be rotating often.
Thank you
Yum! Love the addition of beans!
Loved this recipe!
Love this recipe! I make it all the time. Do you think the sauce would freeze well if I make it ahead and pull it out when I need it? Thanks!
We’d guess that should work just fine!
Yum! Made this tonight and it’s def going in our regular rotation. I halved the salt and capers to lower the sodium content for my toddler and it still had tons of great flavor. I also doubled the kale since it shrinks down so much!
This is honestly the best pesto pasta recipe I’ve tried. We didn’t have bow tie so we did penne rigate. Doubled up the sauce too and it was scary good!! Going on our weekly dinner menu for spring/summer.
Thank you!!
This was INCREDIBLE!
Good Evening Madam,
All these recipes you presented are extemely pleasant and Health-oriented.
Blessings
Uma
I served this tonight with salmon – the recipe is amazing! Perfect for using fresh herbs and kale. Everything I try from Pinch of Yum is awesome.
This was really tasty. I used jarred pesto in place of the parsley, pine nuts, and basil (because I didn’t have those). I used water and it was still flavorful, and I added a can of beans. Will definitely make again. Thank you!
Officially my new favorite umami rich veggie pasta! I used Banza fussili chickpea pasta and the flavors were on point. I paired the pasta with a mint julep and devoured every last bit in my bowl!
I made it tonight and my picky husband loved it and said it was restaurant quality dish! Even my four years old ate it all and loved it .. thank you 🥰😍
This was just so yummy- my husband loved it, our eleven month old loved it, I couldn’t get enough of it. I had to sub in almonds and cilantro for the pine nuts and parsley, but it still worked. I can’t wait to try it with the actual ingredients next time, though. Another great recipe, one of our new favorites!
This looks delicious; I can’t wait to try it! For the sauce, I cannot stand capers and olives. Would it be okay to make without either of those?
Thank you!
Soo Soo Good. I used sunflower seeds instead of pine nuts, as suggested from another review and it was incredible. Super easy, full of flavor and filling.
We loved it and will be making this on the regular.
My partner and I love this recipe so much I’m making it for the second time in one week. So flavorful but so light. Love, love, love it.
The creamy kale pasta recipe is superb and quick.
Got so lucky seeing this recipe my mom bought too much kale and I don’t know what to do with it anymore. This pasta looks yummy and for sure healthy so I’ll try it right away. Thanks
Enjoy, Hannah!
So yummy! tried this during our family get together. They loved it! thanks for sharing this healthy recipe, this definitely made me a rockstar!
Awesome, Hannah! So glad it was a hit with your family!
Made a couple tweaks while cooking: omitted the olives/capers, used pistachios instead of pine nuts, and doubled the kale for added greens. Highly recommend adding a pinch of pepper flakes and Parmigiano on top. This yielded around three happy servings—can’t wait to eat the rest of it!