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Spaghetti with Lemon Pesto
This pasta dish is modeled on the spaghetti al pesto di limone that Giovanna Aceto made for us on her family’s farm in Amalfi, Italy. The lemons commonly available in the U.S. are more acidic than Amalfi’s lemons, so to make a lemon pesto that approximates the original, we use a little sugar to temper the flavor. For extra citrus complexity, we add lemon zest to the pasta cooking water; the oils from the zest lightly perfume the spaghetti, reinforcing the lemony notes of the pesto.
4
Servings
Tip
Don’t forget to remove the lemon zest from the boiling water before dropping in the pasta. If left in as the spaghetti cooks, the zest may turn the water bitter, and the strips are a nuisance to remove from the strands of cooked noodles.
25 minutes
Ingredients
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4
lemons
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Kosher salt and ground black pepper
Directions
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01Using a vegetable peeler (preferably a Y-style peeler), remove the zest from the lemons in long, wide strips; try to remove only the colored portion of the peel, not the bitter white pith just underneath. You should have about ⅔ cup zest strips.
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May 9, 2024
Quick, easy, tasty
I cut this in half, but used 6 oz whole wheat spaghetti. I wound up using all the pasta water. It turned out great, not 'too lemony' as another said. I used a smaller food processor and added half the pasta water to that to give the emulsification a head start. It took me 45 minutes, rather than 25, but I was multi-tasking some broccoli.
February 1, 2024
I’ll make it again
Yes it was good. I modified it by exchanging spinach for English peas. The little crispy pop was great!
January 3, 2024
Fabulous!
This recipe is fantastic. I have made it MANY times, it's that good!
October 29, 2023
Delicious
Easy and exactly the way a lemon pasta should taste.
July 31, 2023
delish!
recipe worked very well as written, tasted like meals I had in Sorrento.
Tried this last night. Relatively subtle but good sprinkled with a bit of extra Maldon salt. Might use a touch of red pepper in the pesto next time.
However, "remove the zest in long, wide strips" and "remove and discard the zest" are much easier said than done. Some suggested technique here would have been a big help.
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I do not see any nutrishinal info or calorie info