Rustic Roasted Penne Pesto

Rustic Roasted Pesto with Shredded Chicken and a Burrata Caprese Salad

I love a meal that highlights the same ingredients and flavors in a different way. It makes shopping for everything easier and you’re able to maximize the flavors that compliment each other. This works perfectly with rustic roasted penne pesto with shredded chicken, it’s a hearty take on the Italian classic.

This pesto sauce is a little different, even though it has the same standard ingredients. By roasting the pinenuts and garlic to a dark golden brown and adding roasted tomatoes to the mix, it transforms your classic pesto pasta into a new dish. Make it with slow cooker shredded chicken to give it more substance or leave it out to make it vegetarian.

If you prefer to grill chicken or cook it in the oven, that works too to have slices of chicken on top instead of the shredded chicken mixed in.

I like to serve the pasta with a caprese salad that is a little different too, using a ball of burrata on the side instead of slices of buffalo mozzarella in between each layer of tomato and basil.

For the pesto pasta (serves 5):

• Pine Nuts … ½ cup
• Parmesan Cheese … ½ cup shredded
• Cherry tomatoes … 1 package
• Garlic … 4 cloves
• Basil leaves … 1 bunch fresh
• Olive Oil … ¼ cup
• Warm water … 2-3 tbsp
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• Penne … 1 box
• Chicken breast or thighs …
• Chicken broth … 1 box (enough to cover chicken in slow cooker)

For the caprese salad:

• Burrata Cheese … 2 balls (1 tub)
• Roma Tomatoes … 4 medium
• Basil leaves …. 1 small bunch
• Reduced Aged Balsamic Vinegar
• Olive Oil

To make the pesto:

1. Place chicken in slow cooker and cover with chicken broth to cook before beginning the rest of the meal. Allow to cook for a couple hours, or use a pressure cooker for reduced time.
2. Preheat the oven to 425 F.
3. Bring large pot of water to a boil for the pasta.
4. Cover two baking sheets in tin foil
5. Toss cherry tomatoes in olive oil and salt and pepper, then place them on baking sheet
6. Sprinkle pine nuts evenly onto baking sheet and place garlic at the edge to roast.
7. Put pinenuts and garlic into the oven and roast until golden brown. The longer you roast, the deeper and nuttier the flavor will be.
8. Add pasta to boiling water and cook according to package instructions. Drain and set aside.
9. When pine nuts are finished allow them to cool a bit and place the tomatoes in the oven to cook down and blister.
10. In a blender or food processor, combine the basil leaves, roasted garlic and pinenuts, parmesan cheese and olive oil and blend.
11. Add salt and pepper and warm water and continue blending. (If it is very thick add more water slowly)
12. Remove tomatoes when they begin to char and most of the moisture of the tomatoes has cooked out. (It will begin to look like like a sauce of sundried tomatoes, see picture below)
13. Shred the slow cooked chicken and set aside.
14. When the pesto sauce, chicken, and tomatoes are all finished toss them into the pasta and combine.
15. Serve with parmesan cheese on top and with a side of caprese salad.

For the salad:

1. Slice tomatoes into slices as thin or thick as you like.
2. Pluck basil leaves off and layer in between tomato slices.
3. Place burrata on the side of the tomatoes
4. Drizzle with olive oil and aged balsamic
5. Top with salt and pepper
6. Serve with a spoon so people can get as much cheese or tomatoes as they like and plate with the pasta.

I hope you enjoy this roasted, more rustic tasting pesto!