Silky Green Spaghetti

Silky Green Spaghetti

This one has become a proper staple in our kitchens and honestly we can't stop making it. The sauce is unbelievably creamy and green without a drop of dairy, which still blows our minds every time. It's got this silky, almost luxurious texture from blended beans and spinach that coats every strand of spaghetti perfectly. It looks impressive, it tastes incredible, and it comes together in about 25 minutes. Make this tonight and you'll be very glad you did.

Cook: 25 min
Serves 4

Before You Start

  • Food processor
  • Colander
  • Large pot for pasta
  • Saucepan
  • Frying pan

Ingredients

  • 1 400g tin of cannellini beans
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 200g baby spinach
  • 60g basil
  • 4 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1 lemon
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 500g spaghetti
  • olive oil
  • nutritional yeast
  • Salt and pepper

Method

1

Prepare the beans and spinach

  • Peel the garlic cloves
  • Open and drain the beans, add to the saucepan along with the garlic and spinach, cover with boiling water and simmer over medium high heat for 2 minutes
  • Drain the contents of the pan into a colander
  • Leave to cool to room temperature
2

Prepare the pasta

  • Cook the pasta in a big pot of boiling salted water according to package instructions (approx 9 minutes)
3

Prepare the Silky Bean Pesto

  • Pick 10-12 small good looking basil leaves and set to one side
  • Roughly twist the leaves off the basil and discard the stems
  • Halve the lemon and squeeze the juice into the food processor, catching any pips in your free hand
  • Add the beans, spinach, garlic, basil leaves, nutritional yeast and olive oil to the food processor and blitz until smooth
4

Finish and serve

  • Add a ladle of pasta water to the frying pan and bring to a simmer over medium heat
  • Add the contents of the food processor to the pan and stir to combine
  • Taste and season to perfection with salt, pepper and more nutritional yeast
  • Drain the pasta, transfer to the frying pan and fold to combine
  • Twist the pasta into serving bowls, drizzle over a little olive oil, season with more nutritional yeast, salt and pepper, dress with the reserved basil leaves and serve immediately

Tips & Variations

  • Save your pasta water: We can't stress this enough. Add a good splash of the starchy cooking water to your sauce when blending and it helps everything come together beautifully and cling to the pasta.
  • Don't rush the cooling: We know it's tempting to skip it but letting the beans and spinach cool before blending gives you a much smoother, brighter green sauce. Patience pays off here.
  • Top it properly: Henry always finishes his bowl with a squeeze of lemon, a handful of toasted pine nuts, and a generous crack of black pepper. It takes it from great to absolutely brilliant.

Why This Works

The real magic here is blending the white beans with the spinach and garlic to create a sauce that's genuinely silky and rich without any cream or butter. Cooking the beans and spinach together first really melds the flavours before everything gets blitzed, and that extra step makes a huge difference to the final result. Trust us on this one, it looks fancy but the technique is dead simple once you've done it.