Pesto Rosso

This Pesto Rosso is made with homemade or store bought marinara, sun-dried tomatoes, pesto, heavy cream and is thinned out to your desired consistency with pasta water.

This sauce is absolutely delicious if you love pesto. I have seen many different recipes on Tiktok making a tomato based pesto sauce using homemade pesto, but I wanted to make a homemade sauce using store bought ingredients. Pine nuts can be really expensive, and weirdly enough, store bought pesto is cheaper than buying a whole bag of pine nuts. For the pasta, you can use any bite-sized pasta like penne or rigatoni.

If you like this recipe, try my HOMEMADE ARRABIATTA SAUCEand my SAUSAGE AND MEAT SAUCE!

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Substitutions
• Variations
• Equipment
• Storage
• Top tip
• Pesto Rosso
• Food safety

Ingredients

• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Marinara
• Sun-dried Tomatoes
• Pesto
• Heavy cream
• Pasta
• Parmesan cheese
• Basil

See recipe card for quantities.

Instructions

Cook your desired pasta in salted water and reserve pasta water.

In a blender, add the marinara sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, and pesto and blend until smooth.

In a large saucepan on medium low heat, add the oil and wait for it to shimmer. Add the garlic and wait until fragrant, about 1 minutes. Stir in the blended sauce and bring to a low simmer, for about 3-5 minutes. Stir in the heavy cream to make it thinner. Add more if desired. If the consistency needs to be thinner, add the pasta water after you have boiled your desired pasta.

Serve the sauce on any bite sized pasta, ravioli or even chicken. Top with parmesan cheese and garnish with basil leaves.

Hint: Use the pasta water to thin out the sauce.

Substitutions

Marinara: You can use homemade marinara or store bought, I love using Rao’s sauce.

Pesto: You can use homemade pesto or store bought. 

Sun-dried tomatoes: I have used dried sun-dried tomatoes before, but the sun-dried tomatoes in a jar is where the flavor is at! They both will work though.

Heavy Cream: If you want to use a lighter cream, you can use milk or half and half.

Parmesan cheese: The cheese must be thinly grated so it can blend well in the sauce.

Basil: I love garnishing with fresh basil at the end of the recipe to give it a nice kick.

Variations

Cooking is a chance to be creative! Have fun with it and feel free to make your own variation.

• Spicy - add chili pepper flakes while cooking to imbue heat into the dish.
• Deluxe - Use ravioli as your pasta choice.
• Kid friendly - add extra parmesan cheese for the kiddies.

Check out this FARFALLE WITH MUSHROOM BOLOGNESE SAUCE!

Equipment

Equipment can have a big impact on how a recipe turns out. Stone bakeware takes longer to heat up than metal pans, and also retain heat for longer, which could make the recipe more watery, or burnt on the outsides.

I love using my Caraway pots, pans and baking sheets for best quality. Get yourself a discount by clicking here!

Storage

This will be good in the refrigerator for 2-3 days.

These ingredients don't stand up well to freezing.

Top tip

Use the pasta water to thin out the sauce.

Print

Food safety

• Cook to a minimum temperature of 165 °F (74 °C)
• Do not use the same utensils on cooked food, that previously touched raw meat
• Wash hands after touching raw meat
• Don't leave food sitting out at room temperature for extended periods
• Never leave cooking food unattended
• Use oils with high smoking point to avoid harmful compounds
• Always have good ventilation when using a gas stove

See more guidelines at USDA.gov.