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.
Creamy Kale Pasta
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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
Units
Scale
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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- 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
What can I add in for more protein?
White beans, chicken, shrimp, or even garbanzo beans all work well here!
What can I substitute for pine nuts?
Walnuts or almonds would be my pick! Or sunflower seeds or pepitas could work well here for a nut-free option.
Is there a good substitute for the kale in this recipe?
We’d recommend spinach in place of kale.
How can I make this even creamier?
Add 1/4 cup of heavy cream to add some thickness and richness, if you want!
Time To Show You Off!
Filed Under: All Recipes Dairy-Free Kale Lemon Pasta Plant-Powered January Quick and Easy Recipes Stovetop Vegetarian Winter
January 4, 2021
Nice to meet you!
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
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Legit accidentally bough too much kale last week and have been desperate to use it up…then this happened. It’s a sign.
This is a smooth meal that looks quite friendly on the stomach and delicious. 🙂
Made last night for dinner. Loved it. I ended up short on white wine so added half the volume of pasta water instead of broth. Turned out so delicious as it thickened the sauce in the best way and kept it vegetarian. So good Lindsay & crew. I am enjoying the plant based recipes!
This is very tasty and was a hit with the household! I substituted sunflower seeds for the pine nuts and it came out great.
🎉 Glad it was a hit!
Thanks for this! We have a nut allergy in our house, so good to know it comes out okay with sunflower seeds. I may use pepitas depending on what I have in the pantry…
This is definitely going on my dinner menu this week! We need more kale in our diet!
Hey Nicole,
Just took a quick look at your food blog. Congratulations on making food blogging your side hustle career as a digital nomad. Keep doing what you’re doing. 🙂
Enjoy, Nicole!
I made this today for lunch and it was absolutely delicious. I definitely recommend adding the
I made this for lunch today and it was absolutely delicious. I definitely recommend adding the red pepper flakes and parmesan cheese.
So glad you enjoyed it, Emily!
Made this tonight-OMG so good and easy to make. The flavors are wonderful. I didn’t have white wine, and didn’t want to buy any, so I used pasta water. I also used orecchiette pasta cause I already had some on hand. Perfect easy recipe!
This was GREAT! I subbed walnuts for pine nuts. I used dried herbs. Easy for a lazy person like me to throw together!
Made this tonight, oh wow, was it ever delicious! Started your Plant Power January and I”m loving the recipes. Thank you!
So glad you enjoyed the recipe, Rhonda! Thanks for joining us for Plant Powered January!
I really, really appreciate you offering alternatives in your recipes. Too many recipes are ridged, but with yours I feel comfortable with experimenting and thus I feel some sort of ownership of, “I made this”. I’ll try this recipe now but with spinach. Ta.
We hope you enjoy it, David!
Hi. You do not mention red pepper flakes in your list of ingredients, nor the amount to use.
I imagine I could use spinach instead of Kale…..realizing it would be less dense. Can’t wait to try the recipe.
Spinach would be a wonderful substitute! Enjoy, Dale!
I made this tonight with spinach instead of kale, and it came out wonderful! The sauce was a little lemony, but I’ll just add a little less next time. Can’t wait to eat my leftovers tomorrow!!
Thanks for reporting back, Jessica! Glad you enjoyed it!
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!
Glad to hear it, Allison!
Made this tonight and it was a hit!! Will be adding to our rotation. Thanks for the recipe!
OMG!! This is so yummy!!I just made this for lunch and wasn’t sure it would be a big hit but my husband and I both loved it! It was so good with just some Parmesan and red pepper flakes to top it off. It would be good with shrimp, too. Thanks for another easy, tasty recipe!
Glad you enjoyed the pasta, Kristine!
Love this! I couldn’t find basil in the store so I used cilantro instead. I also used walnuts instead of pinenuts and it was all so delicious. Thanks for a wonderful recipe!
Made it last night. A hit with the entire family! We topped it with red pepper flakes and parmesan and it was perfect!
I love kale in all forms, but this pasta looks fantastic. Love the sauce on this one!
This is a delicious recipe! I am following and enjoying the recipes for vegetarian January and love the format with shopping list, photos and recipe presentation. The one thing I wish was included was basic nutritional info. I have to come back to the website to obtain it.
So happy you enjoyed the recipe! And we appreciate the feedback, Claudia!
Wow! Awesome post. I love creamy kale pasta. Thanks
Omg! So easy and delish. Being a garlic loving family I added one clove to the sauce and another to the kale. One more change was that I added mushrooms which gave it a meaty consistency. Love this!
My 22-mo picky eater ate not only the pasta but ALSO THE KALE and said “yum” several times. I can’t emphasize enough what a big deal this was. This is officially going into our dinner rotation <3
Definitely a win! So glad it was a hit!
This was tasty! I love your recipes, however, y’all use too much salt. We doubled the recipe but with Only 2 Tbs capers and only 1tsp salt—with the added parm at the end it was the right amount salty! It would have been overboard with the listed servings. I’d love to see y’all focus on a low sodium month like you do a sugar free.
Great feedback, Em. Thank you!
Made this recipe twice in an row as it was so delicious. Kale is not very popular here in the south of Germany but it should be. Thank you for showing me that kale can taste so yummie.
Absolutely, Ela! Thanks for giving the recipe a try!