So when it is sweltering outside (it was a lovely 93°F here today), a heavy, hot meal really just doesn’t sound appealing. But, you know, neither does effort. And that’s where this delicious avocado pasta comes into play. I started making this about a year ago after discovering it on Tumblr, and it quickly became a regular in the meal rotation, mostly because all the ingredients except the avocado are staples in my pantry, making it a relatively cheap but hearty and healthy dinner. It’s also a great “Oh shit, what am I going to make?” meal, because all you have to do is run to the store for an avocado if you’re out (or tell your partner/room mate/cat to go get one — though good luck with that last one).

You have probably seen a few versions of this recipe floating around out there. The difference between this one and those? It’s cheap. Guys and girls, I am 22 years old with a beer budget, and when I want champagne, I’m not spending my money on fresh basil, you feel me? This recipe is based on the one from Oh She Glows, but, you know, cheaper.

What You’ll Need:

• 1 fresh haas avocado, skinned, pitted, and chunked
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 cloves garlic (more or less, depending on how much garlic you like!)
• 1 tablespoon dried basil
• 8 ounces dried spaghetti (or whatever pasta you like)
• Salt and pepper to taste

How To Do It:

1. Cook your pasta according to the box’s instructions. While it’s boiling, put the olive oil, lemon juice, and WHOLE cloves of garlic into a food processor. Process until smooth.
2. Add the chunks of avocado, basil, salt, and pepper to the processor. Process until creamy. It won’t be perfectly smooth, because avocados don’t do that by nature, but the remaining avocado solids should be pretty fine, about the size of chopped garlic (if I had to judge). Refrigerate the sauce until the pasta is cooked.
3. In a bowl, mix the pasta and avocado sauce until fully combined. Serve immediately. Makes three moderate portions, two large portions.

As a note, this pasta does NOT save well. Avocado reheated in the microwave does not taste very good at all. If you think you won’t finish all the pasta, keep the avocado and pasta separate and spoon the sauce onto a serving of pasta and mix that together. You can save the rest of the sauce in an air-tight container or Ziploc bag (the less air, the better, because the avocado won’t oxidize and turn brown), then add it to reheated pasta later. This also wouldn’t be very good made in a large batch ahead of time, because avocados go bad pretty quickly. I would say you could get maybe two days out of this sauce before you’d have to toss it. But honestly, why make a large batch when it’s so quick to make fresh in the first place?

If you want to fancy this up, you can use the juice of a half a lemon, fresh basil (1/4 cup), the zest of your lemon, freshly cracked black pepper, and sea salt. Admittedly, using fresh basil does taste better, but the other things don’t really make too much of a difference, in my opinion (I’ve made it both ways, fancy and not).

Enjoy!

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Nutritional Information

Per serving/3 servings

Calories: 329.6

Total Fat: 18.8 g

Cholesterol: 0 mg

Sodium: 6 mg

Total Carbs: 35.3 g

Dietary Fiber: 5.6 g

Protein: 6.7 g