Adapted from a recipe from my cookbook, this summer pasta is a warm weather favourite and well worth making when the mercury rises. Warm pasta is mixed with fresh greens, sliced stone fruit, cherry tomatoes, and beans – the greens wilt and the pasta quickly comes to room temperature. You end up with a just-warm, refreshing pasta salad that’s exactly right for summer evenings and that packs beautifully for picnics.

This recipe can easily be altered to suit what you have on hand, but it’s key to keep the ratios: creamy beans (so the bigger the better), sweet stone fruit, spicy basil, and slightly acidic tomatoes. You could use almost any stone fruit – peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums – bigger tomatoes, different beans, and so on. More on this below.

For more summery pasta recipes, try this roasted summer vegetable pasta, a quick and easy super green pasta with zucchini pesto, or speedy hummus pasta.

Ingredients

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

• Pasta: any short pasta will do. Pictured is whole grain einkorn – a whole grain pasta adds a good flavour boost. To make it gluten-free, use a good gluten-free pasta like red lentil.
• Apricots: use an equal amount of peaches or nectarines if preferred. Plums will work too but aren’t quite as nice.
• Tomatoes: large tomatoes can be used in place of cherry or plum, and dice them instead of halving. Note that big tomatoes will add a little more liquid to the mix.
• Beans: the biggest white beans, gigante, are the perfect bean to use here. Butter beans (which are just a bit smaller) are very good too, as are chickpeas or smaller white beans.
• Greens: pictured is rucola (rocket/arugula) which is a little spicy and quite nice here. You could use baby spinach, kale, or chard.
• Basil: I do recommend sticking with basil if possible, but parsley can be used in a pinch.

Step by Step

Not so much a step by step as cooking the pasta, then tossing it with the other ingredients! That’s all you need to do.

Recipe Notes

Mixing the hot pasta with the greens makes them wilt, which I prefer – if you want a cold pasta salad and prefer crisp greens, you can cool the pasta before adding the rucola or spinach.

Basil will darken and look unappetising if it’s mixed with anything hot, and that’s why it’s added as the very last ingredient. The pasta should be just warm and the basil should stay nice and green.

How to Store

Storage: keep in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to three days. Make sure you use really fresh ingredients (especially the greens) if you plan on storing.

Freezing: this pasta can’t be frozen.

Expert Tips

• Season well: be sure to season the pasta water well, and then to taste. You might need a little less if the beans are salty.
• Add vinegar: if you like a more sour taste, you can add a dash of vinegar to the pasta (I usually add a little white wine vinegar). For a softer flavour, stick with lemon only.
• Use ripe fruit: it can even be a little over-ripe here as it breaks down a little in the pasta. Under-ripe fruit won’t be sweet enough.

More Pasta Recipes

Vegan Stuffed Shells with mushrooms
Quick Garlic Spinach Pasta
Ten Minute Peanut Butter Noodle Salad
Vegan Pasta Bake