30-minute cheesy broccoli pesto pasta

with lemon pepper chicken!

Before we dive into this week’s recipe, I feel like it’s worth noting that I have never had so much trouble naming a recipe. Originally, I started developing a cottage cheese based chicken alfredo recipe. But then I was like, wait, I should definitely add broccoli to this. And then I thought, oh, and also spinach, why not? So, suddenly I had a green alfredo-ish situation on my hands, but formulaically it was really more like a pesto? So anyway, here we are. It’s sort of a pesto, but creamy, but also sort of an alfredo, but with tons of veg blended into the sauce. It’s outrageously good — I think it’s the hella green pasta of 2024, if I might be so presumptuous. Enjoy!

Considering how obsessed I am with pesto, I was SHOCKED to realize we’ve only cooked it a handful of times here on WTC. In 2021, I shared my formula for making a classic pesto using whatever greens, cheese, oil, nuts, and acid you’ve got on hand. The next year, I introduced the beauty that is *pesto rice* with a recipe that used my other go-to pesto-making method (buying it from the store lol). And in 2023, we made hella green pasta sauce, which isn’t a pesto at all… but looks like one!

Today’s recipe falls somewhere in between a more traditional pesto — it’s got basil, Parm, and garlic! — and a pesto-looking pasta sauce that’s its own thing entirely (this one is nut-free, and contains broccoli and cottage cheese!). There’s enough traditional flavor that I’m calling it a pesto, but the name absolutely doesn’t matter. What’s important here is that it’s delicious, perfectly creamy, and filled with healthy nutrients like protein, calcium, fiber, and vitamin C that’ll make you feel GOOD.

If you’re a vegetarian, you’ll be satiated by the pasta alone, especially if you use chickpea noodles or another noodle alternative that’s high in protein. But if you’re not a veg, I want you to pan sear this super-simple lemon pepper chicken to top the pasta with. It’s kinda perfect.

Either way, you’ll have a beautiful, restaurant-worthy, absolute treat of a meal on the dinner table in 30 minutes!!!

There are a few ways you can steam the broccoli:

• If you have a steamer basket or metal colander that fits inside the pot you’re cooking your noodles in, steam the broccoli right over the boiling pasta for the last 8 minutes.

• If you don’t have a steamer basket or colander that works, you can boil the broccoli instead, using the same water you cooked the pasta in. Use a slotted spoon to remove the cooked pasta from the water, then add the broccoli and cook for 4 to 5 minutes.

• If you don’t want to F with any of that, buy some steam-in-bag broccoli and microwave it while your noodles are cooking. One 10-ounce bag like this will yield enough (plus some extra) for this recipe.

And if you hate broccoli? You can steam/boil 2 cups of green peas or kale to use instead, though the consistency will be a bit different. Or, even simpler, just increase the spinach in the pesto to 2 1/2 cups!

This week on So Into That, I caught up with my friend Carly Phillips Duguid, who’s creative director for Naomi Osaka (among other titles and roles). Carly gives us the fascinating scoop on how she’s helped build the brand of four-time Grand Slam singles champion Naomi Osaka — a brand that goes far beyond tennis, btw — while also birthing and raising two young sons with her husband and business partner, Stu.

In the email, Carly and I share a few more products we’re into, I recap my recent trip to Austin, and I’m giving away a Cravings Teddy Robe (one of Carly’s recs) to one lucky reader. Click here to read, listen, and enter the giveaway!

PS: There are still a few signed copies of What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking the book available through Barnes and Noble!

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30-minute cheesy broccoli pesto pasta with lemon pepper chicken