The idea isn’t exactly strange to put avocado in everything. It’s been the recent hype. We just don’t know if avocado pasta tastes good. The fruit is creamy and all, but isn’t as neutral as typical cream sauces like bechamel or parmesan sauce. Looking through the recipes online made us feel like it was pouring guacamole on top of pasta—now that sounds weird.
But it’s all theoretical. We picked one recipe that seemed promising, tried it, and it tasted better than we had expected. The sauce was even better than regular cream sauces, with a thick consistency and amazing flavor profile.
However, it has no proteins, and we won’t have it. We seared some shrimp with garlic and butter, and it was the game changer.
It takes just 15 minutes, and we promise, you won’t have much to do.
Ingredients You Will Need
To make the avocado sauce, all you need is to blend up some avocados, pistachios, basil, parsley, parmesan, lemon juice, salt, and pepper, and it’s ready. Detailed measurements are in the ‘Avocado Pasta Recipe’ card at the bottom. It serves four and keeps well in the fridge (details in later section).
Once that’s done, you can get cooking with the rest of the ingredients. To a hot pan, add peeled shrimp along with olive oil and garlic, and let one side be seared until golden brown. Add your favorite veggies in—we’re having cherry tomatoes and asparagus, chopped so they’re the same in length, and stir everything for 3-4 minutes.
Now turn off the heat, and dump a good amount of sauce in along with spaghetti or pasta of your choice. We don’t want to cook avocados or the sauce can get really bitter. Mix everything together well, and it’s ready to eat.
How Healthy Is Avocado Pasta Recipe?
There’s a good reason that avocados have been so hyped over: it’s a superfood. This ‘label’ might be a marketing trick, but it makes a great point nonetheless—some foods are richer in nutrients, and avocados are one of them.
In an avocado (7 oz in weight), there are a variety of vitamins and minerals. In fact, a single avocado provides over 20% of your daily needs for 12 different micronutrients. That’s significant. There are 30 g fat, most are monounsaturated fats, which may promote heart health; 4 g protein; 17 g carbohydrates; and 14 g fiber.
If you serve the pasta with the avocado sauce alone, the dish would lack protein. That’s why we added the shrimp, to bring the protein content of each serving to around 35 g.
Unlike regular creamy sauces, the avocado sauce is not high in saturated fats or sodium, making the dish quite healthy in itself. All that had to be done was portion control, and as a result, each portion stays right below the 500 calorie threshold.
Variations and Add-ins
Shrimp is just one of the convenient proteins you can get all prepped and ready to cook straight away. Chicken, white meat or dark meat, sliced beef, sliced pork, minced beef, minced pork, etc. are all good swaps for shrimp.
The same goes for the veggies: you can add to or replace the veggies in this dish with mushrooms, broccoli, bell peppers, zucchini, spinach, etc. The greens do the dish a better service.
We couldn’t quite find something that works similar to the pistachios—their soft texture blends very smoothly, unlike other harder nuts. But since it’s not exactly in everyone’s pantry, and a hint of nuttiness is a must, you can substitute with peanut butter (unsalted, unsweetened). Tahini, sesame paste basically, could also work well, but its aroma can be too strong, so start small and add more by the teaspoons.
How to Keep and Reheat
Keep the sauce and pasta in separate containers, and either refrigerate (for about 4 days) or freeze (for about 3 months). To reheat, stir the pasta with some olive oil in a hot pan first, then add the sauce.
Now how long to heat the sauce is a good question. If heated until bubbling like most pasta sauces, bitter notes will form and ruin the taste. You want it to come to room temperature, slowly, so adjust the heat to the lowest setting, and taste-test every minute.
For refrigerated sauce, we’d say it takes about 1-1.5 minutes. For frozen sauce, however, we suggest microwaving for 2 minutes on medium or just until the sauce melts, then continue reheating it on the stovetop like you would when it’s refrigerated.
Avocado Pasta Recipe
In today’s avocado pasta recipe, we’re trying out the recently-hyped dish and adding our own twist to it. It’s a quick and easy dinner.
- cook TIME 7 mins
- prep TIME 8 mins
- total TIME 15 mins
- COURSE Main Dish
- CUISINE Global
- SERVINGS servings
- CALORIES 492 kcal
INGREDIENTS
- 8 oz avocado
- 14 oz spaghetti cooked
- 8 oz peeled shrimp (from 16 oz whole shrimp)
- 6 oz asparagus (cut into 4” chunks)
- 4 oz cherry tomatoes (halved)
- 2 tbsp parsley (finely chopped)
- 2 tbsp garlic (finely chopped, divided)
- 1 oz parmesan cheese (grated, divided)
- 0.5 oz pistachio (roughly chopped)
- 0.5 oz basil
- 1 tbsp heavy cream
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp salt (divided)
- 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
INSTRUCTIONS
Prep:
Cook spaghetti, from about 12 oz dry.
Peel and pit 8 oz avocado.
Shave the woody ends of about 9-10 asparagus spears and cut them into chunks.
Half 4 oz cherry tomatoes.
Finely chop 2 tbsp parsley.
Finely chop 2 tbsp garlic.
Grate 1 oz parmesan.
Roughly chop 0.5 oz pistachios.
Cook:
Make the sauce: Add to your food processor 8 oz avocado, 0.5 oz parmesan, 0.5 oz pistachios, 0.5 oz basil, 1 tbsp heavy cream, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp garlic, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes. Blend until smooth and set aside.
Sauté the garlic: Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a non-stick skillet over medium heat for about 1 minute. Add 1 tbsp garlic and stir for about 30 seconds.
Sear the shrimp: Spread out 8 oz peeled shrimp, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp ground black pepper on the skillet and leave to cook for about 2 minutes. Once that side is slightly browned, stir everything together for another minute.
Add the asparagus: Add 6 oz asparagus and stir to cook for about 1 minute.
Add the tomatoes: Add 4 oz cherry tomatoes and stir to cook for about 1 minute.
Add the pasta and sauce: Add 14 oz cooked pasta (ours is spaghetti). Pour the sauce over pasta. Turn off the heat and, with a pair of tongs, give everything a thorough mix.
Serve: Portion into serving dishes and sprinkle with 0.5 oz parmesan and 2 tbsp parsley. Enjoy!
NUTRITION
Tuyet Pham
Head Chef, Culinary Consultant
Luna Regina
Writer, Author