I love bacon. Lettuce and tomatoes are good too. And so is pesto. And I love pasta. I know, it gets a bad rap and everyone is supposed to eat “zoodles” or quinoa noodles and what not but I’m not quite ready (doubt I’ll ever be) to ditch pasta completely.

I bought a basil plant while grocery shopping a couple weeks ago and it has been thriving so I knew I had to make pesto and figured I’d use in for an epic creation for last night’s dinner.

Enter my newest creation, Pesto BLT Pasta Salad.

BLT Pasta Salad

Serves 4-6 depending on if you eat it as a side dish or a main dish

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb. (half of a box) of pasta, try using a fun shape because well, its fun!
• 2 T pesto, store bought or make your own like I did*
• 1/2 lb. sliced bacon, cooked until crisp, chopped
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 3-4 cups of crispy lettuce, chopped (I used romaine because its what I had, arugula would have been awesome in this too)

Directions:

1. Cook pasta to your desired doneness, drain and let cool slightly.
2. Meanwhile, make your pesto (or get it out of the fridge).
3. Stir pesto into pasta until coated.
4. Add bacon, tomatoes, and lettuce to the pasta mixture and toss.
5. Serve immediately or refrigerate for 30 minutes and serve chilled.

*My pesto recipe – 1 1/2 cups basil, 3 T pine nuts, 3 T olive oil, 1-2 cloves of garlic (depending on size and how much you like garlic), 1/4 t course sea salt. Add to processor and process until smooth. I don’t like cheese so I do not add parmesan to y pesto. Fell free to add to your if you want. Just take an educated guess on how much. This makes roughly 3-4 T of pesto which is more than you need for the recipe but there’s nothing wrong with left over pesto. Use it to top salads or spread on sandwiches.

I hope you guys like it as much as SL and I did.  I bet this would be delicious over a bed of baby spinach or kale for a healthy(ish) quick lunch. Note: Bacon becomes healthy(ish) when mixed with lettuce and tomatoes in my book 🙂