Easy One Skillet Pesto Asparagus Quinoa Recipe

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Easy One Skillet Pesto Asparagus Quinoa Recipe

a photo of a cast iron skillet of quinoa mixed with pesto, asparagus, tomatoes and topped with melted cheese

This Easy Pesto Asparagus Quinoa Recipe is a fresh, vibrant dish packed with creamy pesto, tender asparagus, fluffy quinoa, and melty cheese — all baked to bubbly perfection. It’s a wholesome, one-pan wonder that’s bursting with flavor and ready in no time!

This one skillet pesto asparagus quinoa recipe is one of our favorite healthy dinners that takes hardly any work on your part. Vibrant basil pesto is the perfect addition to take simple quinoa to spectacularly delicious! We are using vegetable broth to cook the quinoa too which makes this a scrumptious vegetarian recipe!

Casseroles have always done well here at Oh Sweet Basil! They are family friendly and usually easy on the budget. We will forever loooove our teriyaki chicken casserole and of course, my mom’s busy day casserole. But this asparagus pesto quinoa casserole is probably our most healthy casserole, so everyone needs to try it!

What is Quinoa?

Quinoa is a flowering plant with edible seeds. Quinoa is gluten-free, high in protein and one of the few plant foods that contain all nine essential amino acids.

It is also high in fiber, magnesium, B vitamins, iron, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, vitamin E and various beneficial antioxidants.

Quinoa is often used as an alternative for grains such as rice. In fact, we transformed our popular cilantro lime rice into cilantro lime quinoa. It’s fabulous!

What is Needed to Make Pesto Quinoa with Asparagus?

You only need one skillet and a few simple ingredients to make this easy weeknight dinner recipe! Here is everything you’ll need:

  • Olive Oil: Helps cook the asparagus and tomatoes.
  • Asparagus: Trim the spears and chop them into 1-2″ pieces.
  • Sea Salt: Amplifies the flavor of the dish.
  • Grape Tomatoes: Cherry tomatoes also work great.
  • Sun-Dried Tomatoes: Adds extra flavor to the dish.
  • Quinoa: Any type of quinoa works great in this recipe. We used white quinoa this time.
  • Vegetable Broth: Adds more flavor than just using water. It can be substituted with chicken broth if desired.
  • Pesto: You can make your own from scratch or buy a bottle at the grocery store.
  • Mozzarella Chees
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Lemon Butter Pasta

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Fragrant garlic, mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes are sauteed in butter and then tossed with fresh lemon juice and tender pasta to create the Lemon Butter Pasta of which dreams are made.

And before the mushroom haters comment, yes, you can skip them. However, they really are delicious in this recipe, I recommend giving them a chance before ruling them out!

Lemon Butter Pasta with tomatoes, mushrooms, and plenty of garlic

Lemon Butter Pasta

I’ve been making this pasta for company, for myself, for family and friends for almost 25 years now. This is the first recipe I think of when I am craving pasta.

My husband enjoys this with some grilled chicken added to it, but I’m quite happy with this pasta alone most of the time.

When we were first married, I often made this pasta just for myself on weekends when Sean was out of town.

Lemon Butter Pasta Recipe

Lemon, butter, and garlic are an awesome combination in pretty much any recipe, aren’t they? They truly shine in this sauce along with the mushrooms and tomatoes.

This lemony sauce coats the thin angel hair pasta perfectly and it’s a terrific match for Last Minute Chicken or Crispy Oven Baked Chicken. Chicken is my go-to option with this pasta.

However, Garlic Butter Steak Bites or Pine Nut Crusted Halibut are a couple more delicious ways to serve this meal.

Pan Seared Scallops with Lemon Butter Pasta

Nowadays, when I make this, I double the recipe and cross my fingers for leftovers for my lunch the next day. I̵

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The Best 5 Minute Restaurant Style Homemade Salsa Recipe

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The Best 5 Minute Restaurant Style Homemade Salsa Recipe

A bowl of homemade salsa in which a tortilla chip is being dipped. The salsa is sprinkled with cilantro leaves and has cilantro and roma tomatoes and a lime in the background. There is also a wooden bowl of chips in the background.

This is the best 5 minute restaurant style homemade salsa recipe! It is fresh, flavorful and easy to make. You’ll never buy salsa again and you might find yourself eating it every night!

Best Homemade Salsa Recipe

This post has been a long time coming. It’s no laughing matter to set out to make the Best Homemade Salsa Recipe. It all started years ago when my friend, Krysta, made the most delicious homemade salsa EVER.

What’s the key? Oh, friend let me tell you…

Restaurant Salsa Recipe

A restaurant salsa is not big and chunky, that’s a pico de gallo. No, this easy salsa recipe is actually more similar to what you’d pour out of a jar with 100% better flavor.

What makes it a restaurant salsa? Two things:

  1. Canned Fire Roasted Tomatoes
  2. Blending versus strictly chopping the ingredients.

Oh Sweet Basil Pro Tip

If you live anywhere like we do, fresh tomatoes might not be super easy to get all year round, however they do make for the best salsa.

Let’s break it down even more so that you can be successful whether at the grocery store or at the farmer’s market.

Which Tomatoes are Best for Salsa?

When making a homemade salsa like our chunky tomato salsa you can use a variety of tomatoes, but for a restaurant style salsa you’re going to want to stick to Roma Tomatoes.

How to Pick Good Tomatoes

  • Tight Skin- Look for tomatoes with really tight, smooth skin, no wrinkles as that’s a sign of withering from age.
  • Coloring- Even coloring without yellow or orange or green marks means it ripened on the vine as it should.
  • Weight- The heavier the tomato the better! This is the most important of all. Pick it up and resist squeezing it. The more often you feel tomatoes the better you’ll get at feeling the weight.

Should You Add Sugar to Salsa?

A dash of sugar is used to balance the acidity of the tomatoes which often comes from using store-bought vs garden tomatoes.

Salsa Ingredients

While you can use all canned items (not the onion) for salsa, I’ve found that a combination of fresh and canned works the best for a copycat Mexican restaurant salsa recipe. I think that’s because the canned tomatoes add a more thick and saucy salsa versus a pico de gallo like salsa.

Here’s what we use for Mexican Salsa:

  • T
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The Tomato Soup You Are Going To Crave

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This is, without doubt, bar none, the best tomato soup I have ever tasted. I’ve been making this soup almost weekly to satisfy the craving for the past six months. It’s that good. 

If you have someone in your family who doesn’t like tomato soup, this three-ingredient crockpot recipe is the one you can use to convince them otherwise. It has made diehard fans of me and my boys.

The BEST Tomato Soup

3 Ingredient Tomato Soup

Inspired by a spaghetti sauce that my friend Christi told me about years ago, Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce, this crock-pot tomato soup recipe includes butter as a key ingredient. And let me tell you, it makes a world of difference.

You’ll need just three ingredients to make this recipe: tomatoes, onion, and butter.

The fats from the butter balance out the acidity of the tomatoes and onions beautifully. This is not the sweetly acidic version from a can that you may have experienced as a child. This crockpot tomato soup has a rich, savory taste you will relish.

This is a slow cooker recipe, but you’ll notice I’ve also included stovetop directions. So, feel free to make it however you find the most convenient. I reach for the crockpot most often myself, but for an easy lunch, the stove is my go-to.

Crockpot Tomato Soup

Slow cookers or crockpots are an appliance of which I have more than one. If you are an avid slow cooker user like I am, you might understand the need for more than one. So, let’s talk about my favorites:

First up is this 6-quart slow cooker that has a locking lid. These crockpots are fantastic for transporting foods. Mine has gone everywhere from church potlucks to barbecues, game nights to Thanksgiving dinner. However, fair warning, these slow cookers run crazy hot. Low is closer to a boil than a simmer, the warm setting actually simmers. So trust me when I say HIGH is high.

My everyday slow cooker is this 8-quart Crockpot. It’s my go-to appliance for cooking large roasts and big batches of chili. Fun fact: did you know that a full 4-quart cooker, actually cooks more slowly than a half-full 8-quart cooker?

For just cooking a few pounds of chicken to shred for enchiladas or other smaller recipes, this 3-quart version is perfect.

Thanksgiving has become a breeze since I have mastered how to h

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20 Minute Cheesy Caprese Pesto Tarts

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20 Minute Cheesy Caprese Pesto Tarts

a photo of a golden crispy pesto puff pastry bite topped with a balsamic glaze and fresh basil

I don’t know about you, but I adore appetizers, especially around the holidays. We make these 20 minute cheesy caprese pesto tarts all the time!

It’s easy to make a savory appetizer with puff pastry for gatherings and using a few key ingredients will make it taste like you’ve been in the kitchen for hours. Which is my favorite thing, make people think I’ve worked harder than I did.

We’ve done a whole post on pesto, how to make pesto, how to store pesto, how to freeze pesto, how to keep pesto green, how long pesto keeps, and we have plenty of recipes that use pesto which we will link up to at the bottom of the post. So, refer back to that post if you need to read up on pesto.

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Fisher Nuts, however all opinions remain our own.

What Do I Need to Make Pesto Tarts?

Here is a quick rundown of all the ingredients you’ll need. The measurements for everything can be found by scrolling down to the recipe card below.

For the Pesto

  • Basil: you can make your own fresh pesto (highly recommend!) or go with store-bought pesto to save time
  • Garlic: fresh whole cloves
  • Fisher Walnuts: We use walnuts instead of pine nuts to really push that more nutty flavor in this pesto.
  • Olive Oil: make sure it is extra virgin for the best flavor
  • Parmesan Cheese: adds flavor
  • Lemon Zest and Juice: adds a bright pop of freshness and helps keep the basil green
  • Salt: enhances all the flavors

For the Tarts

  • Puff Pastry: We use store bought puff pastry because hello, who has time to make that from scratch?
  • Grape Tomatoes: You can half them or leave them whole depending on the size.
  • Mozzarella Cheese: grab a block of good quality cheese and cube it, it melts so perfectly!
  • Black Pepper: adds flavor

Tips About Walnuts

Just as with our classic pesto, the secret to really great flavor is in toasting the nuts and garlic. Walnuts, when fresh are not bitter like you may believe. Instead they have a sweetness to them and with that robust garlic it really makes for a great pesto.

The pesto we will make today is a little different as it uses Fisher Nuts Walnuts. We did a random sampling and Fisher Nuts were preservative free, tasted the most fresh and not bitter since they weren’t past their date of freshness.

Did you know that? That good fresh walnuts taste juicy, nutty and sweet? To store walnuts, I keep mine in the blue bag we buy them in as the dark colored bag actually is best to keep them fresh, then we place them in the kitchen cupboard as light degrades the oils.

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