Basil Pasta with Lemon Garlic Butter Sauce

This delicious recipe features all the classic ingredients that you would expect in a Basil Pasta - lots of fresh basil leaves, Parmesan cheese, pine nuts, butter, garlic, and fresh lemon. It's an easy and quick recipe that requires only 7 ingredients and 30 minutes of your time!

Course Main Course

Cuisine American, Mediterranean

Keyword basil pasta

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 20

Total Time 30

Servings people

Calories 589kcal

Author Julia

Ingredients

6 tablespoons salted butter divided
5 cloves garlic fresh, minced
½ lemon (preferably Meyer lemon) thinly sliced
8 oz pasta (I used farfalle or bow-tie pasta)
1 cup Parmesan cheese freshly grated
2 oz fresh basil and add more to taste (up to 4 oz)
½ cup pine nuts lightly toasted
salt and pepper to taste (use black cracked pepper)

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons butter, thinly sliced lemon, and minced fresh garlic. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring a couple of times, until lemon slices brown and release juices and minced garlic is browned but not burned. Remove from heat and add 2 more tablespoons of butter. Stir until it melts. Remove lemon slices from the skillet.
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add pasta and cook al dente according to package instructions. Drain pasta.
Add hot, drained, and cooked pasta to the cast-iron skillet with butter and garlic. Stir everything well.
Add 2 more tablespoons of butter and grated Parmesan cheese. Stir on low-medium heat for a couple of minutes to spread out the cheese among the pasta and melt it a bit. Remove from heat. Taste and season with salt.
Add half of the fresh chopped basil to hot pasta and mix everything well.
When ready to serve, top with the remaining half of fresh chopped basil, toasted pine nuts, and cracked black pepper.

Notes

Lemon. I prefer to use Meyer lemon. It's less acidic than regular lemons. Use only ½ of the lemon and slice it very thinly.
Pine nuts. Lightly toast the pine nuts in the preheated oven at 350 F for only 5 minutes. Watch the oven carefully - the nuts can burn quickly.
Cracked black pepper. Use only freshly cracked black pepper that you grind yourself from the peppercorns. You can use any color of peppercorns: black, white, green, etc. Do not use regular pepper, it won't taste the same.

Nutrition