Walnut sauce (salsa di noci)
Easy to make, creamy and delicious, this Italian walnut sauce is a great way to change up pasta night.
Servings: 4 or more
Calories: 253kcal
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Ingredients
- ½ oz bread (½oz/15g is approx ½ slice weight without tough crusts) ideally a rustic white bread
- ¼ cup milk
- ¾ cup chopped walnuts
- ½ clove garlic or a very small clove
- ¼ cup parmesan grated (note this is volume for freshly grated, use a little less if using pre-grated)
- 2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- some salt, pepper and pasta water (see below)
Instructions
- Tear up the bread and put it into a small bowl. Pour over the milk and leave to soak while you measure out everything else.
- Put the walnuts, garlic, grated parmesan and olive oil into a food processor or small blender. Squeeze out the excess milk from the bread (but don't discard yet) and add it in as well. Blend them all together until well combined and smooth, but take care not to over-blend (particularly with a blender).
- Add a little of the reserved milk if needed to help make the sauce relatively smooth and not too thick. Add a little salt and pepper, to taste. Set aside until pasta is cooked.
- When your pasta is ready, don't discard all the pasta cooking water - keep some so you can add a little of the pasta water to thin down the sauce and help it become nice and creamy as you stir the sauce through the hot pasta.
Video
Notes
You can add as much or as little sauce as you like, but this quantity is good for around 1lb/450g pasta.
If you like, you can blanch the walnuts first to remove the inner skin that will make the sauce a little paler in color and reduce the bitterness, though it works well as written.
Nutrition
Calories: 253kcal | Carbohydrates: 6g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 24g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 11g | Monounsaturated Fat: 8g | Cholesterol: 6mg | Sodium: 125mg | Potassium: 134mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 2g | Vitamin A: 79IU | Vitamin C: 0.4mg | Calcium: 121mg | Iron: 1mg
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