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One of the most delicious pestos I’ve ever tasted!! Thank you so much! My husband (who’s typically big on meat) was gushing over this vegetarian pasta dish 😉
Jennifer
Today’s post is sponsored by LAND O LAKES®! I’m super excited to be using their new European Style Super Premium Butter in this recipe because –> 👅👅👅.
How To Make Our Mushroom Penne (1 MIN):
Some of you good people who are on this website right now are looking at this picture and just KNOWING.
You’re knowing that you and me and those buttery-soaked mushrooms on pasta with a heaping spoonful of flavor-packed earthy-vibed walnut pesto – all of us, we just belong to each other. Kumbaya forever.
Some of you good people, unfortunately, are not familiar with this kind of food bewitchery. You’ve chose not to be a part of Team Mushroom (😭) and right now you’re looking at those lil ‘shrooms and you’re tempted to bolt straight for the hills – like the broccoli hills or something or something more regular. Actually, probably more like the no-vegetable hills. Your mouse is already moving up to that little red x because you think you don’t like mushr- WAIT STAHHPPP. I understand that mushrooms can seem a little bit weird, but plz.
Be rational with yourself.
These are not your average mushrooms.
We’re talking about a whole different beast: deep golden brown mushrooms that are bathing their little selves in a sizzling pan of high quality LAND O LAKES® European Style Super Premium Butter. Like I said: Deep. Golden. Brown. If there was ever a time to join Team Mushroom, that time would be now.
So we’ve officially made our way into September, which means it’s fall, right? Come onnn JUST LET ME.
September means a lot of things to a lot of people. Back to school, busy season at work, mentally gearing up for the H word – what? don’t tell me you haven’t thought about the holidays yet. You know who you are – I’m talking to my twins out there who have paper chains going for the number of days until we can listen to Christmas music. When are you allowed to start? I’m a two-weeks-before-Thanksgiving kind of girl. Bjork finds ways to cope.
Most importantly, what this most lovely time of year means to me is earthy, rich, fall comfort food dishes like this are my 24/7/365. Wait, that doesn’t work. Just subtract the number of days from, like, go back and count the months before, er, but start in… ugh. You know what I mean.
I mean Simple Mushroom Penne with Walnut Pesto all day every day.
Would someone please put a soft, runny poached egg on this and eat it for breakfast so that we can truly, honestly, legitimately say this is an all day every day thing? You would basically be the winner of life.
You guys, I have some good news about the short ingredient list here. With an emphasis on the butter. WHAT ELSE IS NEW.
LAND O LAKES® European Style Super Premium Butter (which you can buy at just about any mainstream grocery store 🎉) is an extremely delicious butter that’s made with sweet cream. Angels singing, right? One of the ways it stands out from traditional butter is the fact that it has a higher fat content – 82% if you want to get specific – which means you get an extremely rich flavor and an extra-creamy texture and the butter in your recipes just shines.
If cooking with real butter is your thing (shout out to fall and winter approaching), check out the ideas on the LAND O LAKES® European Style Super Premium Butter Pinterest board. 👈
When you’re only working with three main ingredients – in this case, pasta, mushrooms, and that beautiful, luscious butter – you better make sure that each of those ingredients is top of the line in terms of quality and taste. Because you only get THREE.
And there is nothing more wonderful for your food-loving senses than a simple, minimalist ingredient combination where every flavor and texture just shines.
PLZ BE A MUSHROOM LUVR. This is happening. Right now.
Simple Mushroom Penne with Walnut Pesto
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 4–6, depending on how hungry you are! 1x
Description
Simple Mushroom Penne with Walnut Pesto – made with easy ingredients like Parmesan cheese, whole wheat penne, mushrooms, garlic, and butter. Vegetarian.
Ingredients
For the Pasta
- 8 ounces penne pasta
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 16 ounces fresh sliced mushrooms
- 1/4 cup grated or shaved Parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley, for topping
For the Walnut Pesto
- 1 cup walnuts
- 1 1/2 cups packed greens (spinach or basil are great – but keep some basil for a more traditional pesto flavor)
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 clove garlic
- juice of 1 lemon
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Cook the penne pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
- Toast the walnuts in a small sauté pan over low heat with no butter or oil – stir and shake the pan until the walnuts are fragrant and toasty (about 5 minutes). In a food processor, combine all the ingredients for the walnut pesto and pulse until mostly smooth.
- Heat the butter over medium heat in a wide skillet. Add the mushrooms and saute for 8-10 minutes, until the mushrooms are a deep golden brown. Add the penne pasta to the pan and stir to combine, adding Parmesan, salt, pepper, and fresh parsley or other herbs to taste.
- Divide the pasta between 4-6 bowls and top with a generous spoonful of the walnut pesto OR stir the walnut pesto directly into the pasta.
Notes
Nutrition is for 6 servings including pesto.
This recipe is high in fat primarily because of the walnuts, butter, and Parmesan cheese. If you’re looking to lighten it up a little bit, I’d start by omitting the Parmesan cheese.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: walnut pesto, mushroom penne, penne pasta with walnut pesto
Pinch of Yum has partnered with Land O’Lakes for an exclusive endorsement of Land O Lakes® European Style Super Premium Butter. This post is sponsored by Land O’Lakes.
PS. I used my food processor for this recipe – and I love it so much that I wrote this post showing off 12 Magical Ways To Use A Food Processor! ✨ I loooove that thing.
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our collection of easy pasta recipes. Check it out!
I have been hearing about this butter all over the land, and I am thinking that the angels are mots definitely singing a buttery melody. Especially because WALNUT PESTO. With Mushrooms.
Fall food goodness that my face is TOTALLY craving. pinned!
Buttery melody indeed! 🙂 Thanks Taylor!
Oh my! That looks divine! I love mushroom and pasta, but I honestly haven’t tried this yet. I can’t wait to try your recipe.
Awesome! I hope you like it Lynndee!
Do you recommend using any particular kind of mushrooms?
I’m definitely going to be looking for this butter!
Hi Myrna!
As a new mushroom lover, I have found that white mushrooms soak up the most of the butter flavor, so they are my favorite! If you already love the little ‘shrooms then portabella would be lovely in this! Just my opinion 😉
hey Myrna! I like portabella or “baby bellas” as they’re called at my grocery store. 🙂 But white mushrooms are pretty basic and a good starter mushroom. So basically everything Brittany said. 🙂
Made it last night – and decided to use baby bellas as they have a “heartier” flavor and might help my hubby not notice there was no meat in this dish!
It was awesome!
Thanks, Myrna!
Ah!! oh dearest blogger friend Lindsay! You have totes helped me in my journey (albeit a long one) to Team Mushrooms! As of this MONTH I have conquered my fear and they are a regular in our fridge! The secret was the golden brown feature 😉 …yeah cover it in butter and I will like it…go figure <3
Oh and walnut pesto is gonna be where it is at for me…because after debating for several minutes on the price tag for pine nuts, I just couldn't…because that would like buy me a lot of fun things at Target. #judgeme
Brittany, I was just about to comment about how excited I was for walnut pesto because I can’t justify spending $6000 on pine nuts either!! And Lindsay, this looks amazing…100% team shroom!!
I know! Pine nuts!!! Why you be so ‘xpensive?
I adore mushrooms. And it took three years, but I finally got my husband to love mushrooms as well. This looks like the type of meal I’m going to start eating as soon as this bloody heat wave is over. Cheers!
Awesome! hope you like it Allyson! 🙂
You make me laugh! which is a good thing! I am totally in your camp and my husband and kiddos…well…lets just say they have some growing up to do!!! wish this dish was downstairs on my kitchen counter right now…thank you for sharing:)
thanks Abby! Hope you get a chance to make it for you and yourself someday soon!
I love Land O Lakes products but this is the first I have heard of their European Style Butter. YUM! I can’t wait to try it.
Yes! new and exciting. I’ve already seen it in a few grocery stores!
I love the mushroom pasta combo! And with that walnut pesto! Yum!
Thanks Mary!
This looks amazing! mushroom + pesto lover over here. Can’t wait to give this a try!
Thanks Ana! Hope you like it!
Can I just move in with you and have dinner…and breakfast…and lunch with you every day?? Oh, wait…that would be really creepy, and my family would miss me dearly…Guess I’ll just have to keep having sudo dinner with you! Lol!
Thank you for all of your AMAZING recipes (by the way, I made your carmelized pork tacos 2 weeks ago and they were soooooooo good!!!)! My friend Fara told me about all of your delicious recipes and I’m glad I tuned in!
I also enjoy your recioe commentary – thanks for keeping it real!
Thanks Erin! Love hearing that! 🙂
This recipe does look terrific. However, as an Italian and a pasta fan, the serving sizes look, shall I say, European size, and not American sized. That’s not necessarily a criticism, please read on.
If you start with 8 ounces of pasta, and makes six servings, that’s only 1.5 ounces of dry pasta per person. This is a much smaller amount than the normal monster bowl of pasta that most Americans are used to eating, which is probably 4 to 6 ounces of dried pasta person.
However, because of the high fat content, if you eat slowly and chew carefully, you will probably feel more satiated with the smaller serving. This is the more European way to eat, and with a recipe with this very high fat content, it’s probably a good approach. Wowzer, 33 g of fat on only 1.5 ounces of pasta?! Sounds like my kind of recipe. 🙂
Having said that, I would probably scarf the entire pot because it looks so good.
Thanks for sharing your expertise John! I find that adding more stuff to the pasta makes up for what might be a less-than-two-ounces serving of pasta. So we went big on the mushrooms to compensate. And if you want closer to the American style portion, you can go for the 4 servings rather than the 6.
Mushrooms are my life! They pretty much make up their own food category in my world! That butter sounds divine, I love sweet cream butter. I will be keeping my eye out for it at the store. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Thanks Emily! hope you enjoy it!
I am right there with you on the mushroom love. I usually will buy (2) containers of mushroom when I cook them because I have been know to eat an entire pint DURING the cooking process. The butter, the brown tasty shrooms- it’s a love you cant deny.
They shrink down so much! I always get sad. Which is why I also buy two containers. 🙂
Gimme!!!! That looks AMAZING!!! And the perk of your in-laws owning the local grocery store… you can request fancy butter! I can’t wait to try this.
!! I want my in laws to own a grocery store too!
ohmygosh! This dish looks so wonderful I would be tempted to gobble it up and suffer the allergy effects later. Tempted. Sooooo tempted. Can you serve it with a side of epipen 😉
Bahahaa! Jamie! you’re the one exception to the eat-more-mushrooms rule: don’t do it! 🙂
BIG mushroom lover here!! This European salted butter is totally a holy grail ingredient!! Simply delicious! By the way, good luck with your Tasty Food Photography Workshop this weekend!
Thank you Tonya! Appreciate that! I can happily report here a week later that it went really well 😀
I listen to “Christmas music” all year long. “I don’t care what they’re going to say…” (<-sorry for the Let It Go ref. there. *shamed face*) But yeah, if I want to listen to it, I'm going to listen to it, whether society thinks I'm odd or not. So go for the two weeks before Thanksgiving thing! And do a little Elsa move. It kind of helps. 😉 (Pssst, or you could join my side and go year round. Unless that would make it less special. 🙂 )
When we lived in the Philippines, they started up with Christmas music on Sep. 1st. So, if they can do it, we can too! haha.
I have to admit that I’m one of those “run for the hills” kind of mushroom people. But, I’m trying to give them a second chance. Just yesterday I had some in my vegetable soup and I ate every one. This recipe looks tantalizingly delicious. I think I’ll give it a try. 🙂
Gina! YES! Good work friend!
I love mushrooms and thankfully so does my husband as well as my sons. This looks really good. Ready for comfort food…..and the garden to be done.
Awesome! hope you like it Karen!
I am too fond of mushroom and pasta, and this recipe is a great combination of both. I was just planning for the menu this weekend and here I have got the solution of it. Thanks a lot for sharing. 🙂
Thanks Puja! Appreciate that!
Omg all that buttery goodness + pesto +pasta + mushrooms!! I am dying over this meal Lindsay!!!
Thanks Ami! 🙂 ME TOO
I’m totally down with the mushroom train- mushrooms and butter are amazing magical creatures that create bliss and joy.
However!
I’m dying to know where you got that bowl you used! It’s stunning!
Thanks Kelsey! My father in law made the bowl! 🙂 Pretty sweet, huh?
I just say that the mushroom haters need to have someone – you – educate their palate. After all you are a teacher. Now butter — the unsalted kind — is magic. It makes mushrooms taste heavenly as well as everything else. This recipe sounds like it would take you to heaven and back. Thank you for the inspiration.
Thanks Marisa! 🙂 Agree on the magic of butter with mushrooms!
Yummy!
Thanks Arthur!
YES to Team Mushroom & kumbaya-ing forever & ever.
Right there with ya Lucia!