Identical-tasting cinnamon roll muffins.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 15 mins |
| Total Time: | 45 mins |
| Servings: | 5 |
| Yield: | 4 to 6 – servings |
Ingredients
- 16 ounces fresh spinach, washed and chopped
- 6 ounces low-fat, firm silken tofu
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- ⅛ cup low-sodium chicken broth
- ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 10 ounces fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced
- 6 ounces fresh sliced shiitake mushrooms
- ½ cup diced red onion
- ¼ cup bacon bits
- 1 pound penne pasta
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to package directions.
- While pasta is cooking, in food processor or blender, combine spinach, tofu, lemon juice, garlic, broth, cheese, pepper, and Italian seasoning, process until smooth. Set aside.
- Spray a large non-stick saute pan with cooking spray. Over medium heat, cook onions and mushrooms until tender. Reduce heat to low, add pesto mixture and heat until hot.
- Toss pasta with sauce and bacon bits. Serve with additional Parmesan cheese, if desired. NOTE: If sauce seems too thick, thin to desired consistency with pasta cooking water or broth.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 451 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 77 g |
| Cholesterol | 11 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 7 g |
| Protein | 25 g |
| Saturated Fat | 2 g |
| Sodium | 417 mg |
| Sugars | 6 g |
| Fat | 7 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I used soft tofu and Added basil to the sauce. I also added tomatoes and chicken to the dish. Great base dish love using tofu as a base for sauces!
Wonderfully good..used half and half instead of milk ..added flour to saute onions gradually added half and half
I made this recipe exactly as written. When I purchased my spinach it was not 16 oz it was in one of those plastic containers, I found it a little hard to calculate 16 oz, so I think I might have added too much spinach. Very green looking… I also did not have two different types of mushrooms and just used the one kind with the combined amount. After getting passed the greenery of the dish it did taste good and once I added bacon bits it almost looked a little like Christmas with the green and red.
Loved this for healthy option. Did it over spaghetti squash and added grilled chicken….yummmmmm
This is a great recipe. We don’t like tofu so we use grilled chicken and penne noodles, mmmm so good!!
Absolutely love this! I only had whole wheat orzo in the house, so I used that. This was a great way to use up a lot of spinach that a co-worker gave me. Tastes very fresh and a breeze to make. My husband actually ate his as a dip on crackers (kind of like hummus.) I tried it and it was really good – who knew? Great recipe – thanks!
Very tasty. Like the zing of the lemon with the garlic.
Wow! This was surprisingly good! I added a handful of basil from my garden instead of Italian seasonings and it was very close to pesto. All my kids ate it. My daughter and I couldn’t get over how good it was. Great recipe and I will be using this instead of pesto recipes. I also used baco bits and only 14 oz of angel hair.
Easy to make and very tasty. I omitted the tofu; the hubby is not a big fan. I also added a bit of EVOO to the spinach as it pureed. Tasty!
This was super yummy! Even better because it was pretty healthy! I didn’t follow the amounts to the T because I have a small food processor and I had tons of spinach so I just eyeballed most of it and seasoned to taste. Served it with pre made chicken pesto tortellini. This was awesome and after my husband ate it I told him there was tofu in it and he could’t beleive it. I thought for sure you could taste it but you couldn’t. Perfect healthy pesto!!!!!
I made my first batch of homemade pasta today, and the Spinach Pesto Sauce went really well with it. The Pesto Sauce was really easy to make, and I had a lot of fun doing it. I couldn’t really taste the Parmesan, really. I think that I am going to try Feta the next time I make this. Overall, 4/5
This was fantastic! I did not have shiitake mushrooms, so I just used fresh white mushrooms. It was very simple to put together, and the recipe makes quite a bit. I also used soy bacon for the bacon bits. This one is a keeper!
I’m sure it’s quite a healthy dish, but, both my wife and I thought it was quite bland. We followed the recipe closely, though we skipped the bacon bits, and had ~20% more regular mushrooms and 20% less shiitake mushrooms than called for. Won’t make again.
Yum! Whole family loved this! Don’t think the broth is necessary – tofu has a lot of water.
I found this recipe required too much spinach. I think it would have tasted better if only half was used. Overall I found it very bland.
this was great for a weeknight dinner. i scaled the recipe down a bit and eyeballed some proportions, but this was simply easy, healthy and delicious.
This was too much work for something that didn’t have much taste. It had a lot of really good ingredients in it but they just didn’t come together. I wouldn’t make this again.
it wasn’t a big surprise that my family didn’t care for this, but i love spinach and pesto, so i had high hopes for this recipe, but even i didn’t care for it. i really wanted to like it, but it was too bitter. maybe the frozen spinach used by some alleviated that problem–not sure; however, i used the leftover spinach pesto in a polenta lasagna (mixed with spaghetti sauce) and it tasted great. i think the cooking of the spinach sweetened the flavor.
Oh man, this is so good! I just finished eating it and had to come back to rate it. It was so simple to make, too! We used real bacon instead of bacon bits, and then cooked the onions in a small amount of the leftover fat. Omitted the mushrooms because I don’t like them and the Parmesan because I don’t eat cheese, but added a bit more garlic and some home-grown basil into the mix. TASTE-Y! We will definitely make this again, especially when we have friends over for dinner.
I LOVE THIS RECIPE. my roommates were laughing at me as I tried to blend the tofu in a magic bullet but then they were grateful when I presented them with a delicious dish. My sister was shocked when I told her she had eaten spinach AND tofu!! This beats any pesto cream sauce out there.
I was so excited to make this but it was missing something or many things! I ended up putting more bacon,cheese & a little salt and it still tasted below average. Do not keep for leftovers. I made this dish for myself (already knowing the family wouldn’t like it)and I tried to eat more the next day.. Also, it took forever to make it because it was so much in the blender, it would not go. I had to keep moving things around over and over and over to get the blender to even blend. It looked like a thick green glob. Will not make again!