Broccoli-Walnut Pesto Pasta Recipe (2024)

This was fantastic. Packed way more flavor than expected. Added a teaspoon of red pepper flakes and a tad more lemon juice and garlic. Really really great. Broccoli and mint are a dynamite combo.

We tossed the stems with olive oil the roasted them in the oven - made a great addition to the pasta! DELICIOUS (and super easy)

Fresh, tasty and a good way to add veggies to a pasta meal. I found the proportions of broccoli to mint a little high, and it makes more pesto than you need. Next time I’ll use one crown of broccoli not two, and more lemon.

For those commenting on the salt, "salt" is not what is off in the recipe. 1/4 cup is not that much in a pot of water. What is at issue is the size of the "saucepan," which is not specified.Here's a recommendation: use the right amount of salt for the pasta pot you're using. It should taste like the sea. Most recipes recommend cooking pasta with a lot of water. Personally, I prefer less water, so that the water is starchy enough to really help thicken the sauce.

My family and I enjoyed this. Not sure why others say it’s too salty. It’s not. Maybe they’re using table salt and not kosher. Or they’re not using enough water to boil the pasta. (Granted, the author says a large saucepan. I think a pasta pot would be more appropriate, so the water wouldn’t be as salty.) Will make again, as the flavors are quite nice together but I’ll probably just do them all in the food processor, rather than keep the walnuts and parm out until the end.

Made with basil instead of mint. Only salt to taste. Kids ate it!

Most of the NYT recipes seem to expect kosher salt although they don't mention that. 1/4 cup table salt is actually more "salty" than an equivalent amount of kosher. The amount of water in the pot would make a difference as well.

The 1/4 c of salt has to be some sort of mistake. I questioned it while I was dumping it in and should've followed my instincts. We couldn't finish what was on our plates and ended up throwing it out. What a waste.

Made this last night with a few changes. Decreased salt in broccoli water; added 1/2 cup toasted walnuts to food processor for pesto along with a portion of the lemon juice and zest and about 1/2 cup parmesan. Used 1 cup mint and 1 cup basil for pesto. Held out several broccoli florets for each serving and threw them in during last few minutes of pasta boil. Loved this as a change from my usual basil pesto. Will use even more lemon next time. Served with spinach, feta and walnut salad.

Not sure why this recipe calls for so much salt. 1/4 cup is wayyyy too much. Meal ruined.

This is delicious and makes up quickly BUT if made according to the directions it is massively over-salted. I am usually the salt fiend in our household and even I found it far too much. I would add at the most 1/2 teaspoon salt to the pesto and only carefully add more to taste at the end.

Way too salty, but I could taste underneath all the salt what would have been a great dish. I wonder if they mean 1/4 tbsp of salt? 1/4 cup is over the top.

Fun recipe using broccoli! Didn’t have walnuts but did have pine nuts that i pulsed in with the broccoli mix. Don’t skimp on the cheese and a drizzle of oil to finish really makes it pop!

Very good. Very easy. As a garlic lover I had the [not so genius] idea to double the garlic. Well, if I roasted it maybe it would have worked. But doubling raw garlic made it so spicy it was nearly unpalatable. Shed a tear as I dumped the bowl out I had set aside for lunch the next day. Stick to recipe. With lots of grated parm ;) hubs added red pepper flakes.

This was yummy but tooooo salty. You don’t need that much salt in the water, I don’t think, it makes both the broccoli and the pasta pretty salty and there’s also salt in the pesto, and of course the Parmesan is salty too. That said, it was still yummy and I’ll make it again, just with less salt.

This is my favorite pasta dish right now. I do half mint/half parsley, and I slice the discarded broccoli stems thin and cook in a pan with one chopped yellow onion, crushed walnuts and red pepper flakes to fold in with everything at the end. Really takes it to the next level. Sometimes I add peas!

10/10 on this recipe. Made a few changes as a personal preference - I blended the walnuts with the broccoli, used green onions instead of mint and added red crushed peppers. Also crisped up some mushrooms and used as garnish 🤌🏼

As for salt, I salted the pasta water with a handful of salt and only used about 1tsp for the total meal, starting with 1/2 tsp and adjusting at the end.

This was delicious. I substituted 3 cups of baby spinach instead of mint. Also used 2 large garlic cloves and more lemon. Only used 1 tablespoon of sea salt in the boiling water and everything tasted fine, though I will probably use less salt and olive oil next time.Be

Way too salty! I read the response by Alex saying that probably everyone is using table salt. Well I wasn't. I had kosher salt. I also used a very large pot, at least twice the size needed for one pound of pasta. I'm not sure why I would use an even larger pot. Given that, I decided to follow the recipe as stated. Mistake. It was inedible. It is simply too much salt. I would reduce the salt by about two-thirds and it might come out just right then. It is an otherwise good recipe.

Just checking in to confirm that the amount of salt it calls for is indeed unhinged. We pulled out all the stops to try and salvage this. Really a shame, as it’s a perfectly good recipe otherwise.

Turned out very, very salty. I feel like the recipe could be written better -- recipe should specify how much water should be boiling. Would definitely just use separate, regular water with a small amount of salt for the pasta, and probably less to blanch the broccoli as well.

Great way to get my son to eat broccoli. I used three cups of broccoli (vs four) and swapped arugula for mint because that is what I had. Could have used one more tablespoon of lemon, maybe? We all enjoyed it.

Loved the idea of this recipe, but a few small issues took away some points for myself and my family. First, the salt - I well salt my food, but the ¼ cup in the water made the broccoli way too salty, making the pesto almost unbearably salty. And I didn’t even use the full ¼ cup!Second, the walnuts were a good addition, but I could’ve used more of them, maybe toasted, and possibly in the pesto. Third, more lemon! This needed a bit more brightness.

Extremely salty. The mixture was difficult to blend. Overall disappointed. Would not make again

This was sooo good! I used a little less salt, but otherwise followed the recipe. A great use of broccoli, and, for me, the cool minty flavor came through at the end of each bite. Definitely a keeper!

I too was surprised at how flavorful this was, even if you don’t normally like broccoli that much, the mint adds a new character. I was able to keep it JUST on this side of being too salty by rinsing the salt water off the pasta noodles before mixing in the pesto. Maybe it’s because I used coarse sea salt in the water instead of kosher? Not sure of the difference. Next time I make it I will taste the pesto before adding more salt directly to it.

Included the broccoli stems in the pesto, and also added the walnuts directly to the pesto as suggested by another reviewer. We liked it.

This was delicious but way too salty. Could be because I used table sale instead of kosher salt. I added more olive oil and it helped reduce the saltiness. But this is definitely a go-to recipe for me. Everyone loved it.

Made this tonight -- my teenagers hated the mint and refused to eat more than a couple of bites. I'm going to be having it for lunch for a while. If I made it again I'd skip the mint (maybe sub basil) and only cook 1/2 pound of pasta. I used two heads of broccoli, but ended up with very little sauce, even though I added a full cup of pasta water. The shells turned green, but there was nothing extra. I thought the walnuts were a nice addition -- I toasted them before adding them.