Purple Pesto Pasta

So, I had to do something fun with the purple basil I bought at the market on Sunday. The result was purple pesto pasta:

I don’t know how well the purple comes out on your picture, but it was definitely very dark purple. I expected it to taste the same as regular basil pesto since I hadn’t tasted a difference when I compared plain purple basil with green basil, but somehow, in pesto form, the purple basil tasted earthier and a bit more complex.

I didn’t use parmesan in the recipe because I am currently required to eat dairy-free, but I actually think the earthiness of the purple pesto would have been muted by parmesan. So, if you get your hands on some purple pesto, try it without parmesan first.

This is another one of those un-recipe pesto recipes: I used 2 cups of purple basil, 1/4 cup raw almonds, and 1/4 cup olive oil, whizzed in the food processor and mixed with pasta – it worked well with my wheat-free rice-based pasta, and I imagine would be lovely with regular pasta.

I am also submitting this recipe to Presto Pasta Night,weekly roundup of pasta recipes — any pasta, any cuisine, any shape, any meal. It is lots of fun, but I had not participated in a while, mainly due to my lack of pasta eating. Ruth at Once Upon a Feast created the event, and the hosts change weekly, though Ruth herself is hosting this week.