Creamy kale chickpea pasta

Let’s be honest: I doubt anybody eats kale because of its taste or texture. At least I don’t. I eat kale because of its health benefits: kale is one of the few foods with the highest nutrient density or ANSI (Aggregate Nutrition Score Index); that is, the highest nutritional bang for the calories buck. But it gets even better: kale is low in phytates, which means that the body can easily absorb the nutrients.

Kale is high in iron, vitamin C (which boost iron absorption), calcium, vitamin K, fiber, potassium, beta carotene and much more.

This recipe is a nice way to sneak in some kale in your diet, in a pasta dish that even the kale-skeptics will love!

This recipe was heavily inspired by a recipe by Tim Spector.

Ingredients

2 servings

• 2 cups of your choice of wheat pasta, short or long
• 3 cups of kale, preferably Tuscan, but any will do, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, diced
• Juice of 1/2 to 1 lemon, to taste
• 1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast
• 1/2 cup canned white beans, preferably cannellini, and their liquid
• 1 cup of cooked/canned chickpeas or white beans
• Salt and pepper
• Crushed unsalted, roasted peanuts

Instructions

1. You can keep the kale stems for this recipe. Massage the kale, place it in a microwave safe bowl with a little of water and the garlic, and cook in the microwave at 100% power for a 2-3 of minutes, until it wilts. This is a quick way to blanch the kale, but you can do it the traditional way too.
2. Cook the pasta per the package instructions. I recommend to cook al dente, as we will cook the pasta later again for a bit with the pesto.
3. While the pasta cooks, make the kale pesto: in a blender, mix the cooked kale and garlic, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, 1/2 cup of white beans and reserved liquid and blend until smooth.
4. When the pasta is ready, drain it, reserving a little of the cooking water. Put the pasta back in the pan, add the 1 cup of chickpeas or beans and the kale pesto. Stir and cook for a few minutes until everything integrates. Feel free to add the pasta water little by little if its too thick.
5. Transfer the servings to plates and sprinkle with the crushed peanuts before serving.