Green Pasta Sauce

This Green Pasta Sauce recipe is THE quickest gluten free pasta recipe, super healthy and full of flavour. The spinach pasta sauce can be whipped up in the blender using just 5 ingredients, and is great hot and cold. Ready in under 15 minutes.

This easy green sauce for pasta is so quick and simple to make, perfect for those weeknight dinners when you’re in a hurry.

With just 5 ingredients this vibrant green sauce is great hot or cold. It’s perfect for gluten free pasta salads or a light summer dinner.

I love mixing tiger prawns into my green pasta but it works really well with chicken, halloumi – or even on it’s own.

Green pasta sauces always make me feel like I’m eating a healthy meal and it’s a great way to sneak in ‘hidden veg’.

Essentially, this gluten free spinach pasta sauce recipe is perfect for those nights you just cannot be bothered to cook.

So grab your food processor, a few key ingredients and a bag of gluten free pasta ready to whip it up in no-time.

If you like this, make sure you also check out my Sun Dried Tomato Pasta Salad or my easy Hummus Pasta recipes too, as well as my Creamy Gnocchi with spinach.

Green Pasta Sauce Ingredients

To make this gluten free creamy green pasta sauce you’ll just need a few ingredients.

The full recipe is below with instructions (and it’s printable!) but for the shopping list, you’ll need to pick up:

• Gluten Free Pasta: Any gluten free pasta will work but for this recipe I used the Napolina Gluten Free Fusilli. I found it worked really well and didn’t go hard at all when eaten cold in a pasta salad. Highly recommend it, even if it is a bit pricier.
• Fresh Spinach Leaves: These provide the vibrant green colour! I recommend using fresh spinach over frozen spinach, otherwise you could end up with a very wet sauce. If using frozen spinach, cook and then try to squeeze as much water from it as possible before adding to the sauce.
• Crème fraîche: The lovely creaminess from the spinach sauce comes from using crème fraîche. I recommend the full fat version but the reduced fat one will work too. If you prefer you can use cream cheese instead.
• Lemon Juice: t’s a subtle addition but adding a touch of citrus really helps create a light and tasty dinner.
• Garlic: You can use chopped garlic, minced garlic cloves or garlic paste – any will work. You can also omit garlic if you can’t tolerate it.
• Parmesan Cheese: Using dried cheese like parmesan adds a lovely nutty flavour without being too overpowering.

How to make green sauce for pasta

Honestly, making this creamy green sauce pasta could not be any easier.

All you need to do is add all the ingredients to a food processor or blender and blitz them together into a sauce.

Do this while the gluten free pasta is cooking and the whole dish will be ready in under 15 minutes, it’s that simple.

Top tips for cooking gluten free pasta

Gluten free pasta behaves differently to ‘normal’ pasta, so you have to cook it a little differently.

Always make sure the water is boiling before adding the pasta, then once added try to bring the water back to the boil as quickly as possible.

Make sure while you bring it back to the boil, you keep stirring the pasta so it doesn’t form a giant clump.

And most importantly – drain the pasta as soon as it is cooked!

If you overcook it or just leave it in the water it can often turn to sludge and there’s often no way back from that.

If your pasta is ready before the sauce, you can drain it, rinse in cold water, then toss it in a little extra virgin olive oil to ensure it doesn’t stick together in the colander.

Variations

This Green Pasta Sauce recipe is delicious on its own, or I have some suggestions for extras you can add to this gluten free pasta dish:

• Tiger Prawns: These pair especially well with the lemon in the spinach pasta sauce. Lovely with rocket (arugula) on top too.
• Roasted Tomatoes: Tomatoes can add a lovely pop of colour. Use roasted tomatoes or even sun dried tomatoes. Fresh basil on top works well with this.
• Grilled Chicken: Top your green pasta dish with some grilled chicken – gluten free garlic bread on the side is optional!
• Chorizo: Frying off some chorizo or bacon and adding to the sauce can add a lovely salty and spicy variation.
• Spicy: Add some red pepper flakes to the sauce for a little kick. I’ll let you decide how many depending how spicy you like it!
• Dairy Free: Use a dairy free cream cheese and a vegan hard cheese equivalent for a dairy free alternative to this green pasta sauce recipe.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some FAQs about this easy green pasta sauce recipe – if you can’t find the answer to your question here or in the post above, please comment and I’ll try answer!