Pesto and cottage cheese for a creamy, easy-to-make pasta sauce

Pasta with a rich, creamy sauce is a wonderful comfort food that probably tastes best on a chilly evening. When it gets warmer outside, the idea of ​​pasta with a rich sauce might not be as appealing to some of us. But what if you could get all the creamy goodness of a decadent pasta dish without the excessive heaviness? As a self-proclaimed pasta lover, I’d like to think that all my fusilli dreams have come true.

It turns out that fromage blanc makes for an incredibly simple and delicious pasta sauce, especially when combined with classic pesto. This often-overlooked dairy product is lighter than heavy cream or cream cheese, so it’s a great option for getting the creamy texture pasta lovers crave without all the decadence of richer alternatives. The quickest and easiest way to pull off this summery dish is to mix fromage blanc with store-bought pesto sauce until you have a cohesive mixture. Once combined, add the hot pasta and toss until each noodle is coated. Of course, it’s hard to beat freshly made basil pesto, and since the herb is at its peak during the summer months, it shouldn’t be hard to find.

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Why Cottage Cheese Works in Pasta

You can top any pasta with cream cheese straight from the container, as pictured above, but the key to using cream cheese as an element in pasta sauce is to blend it until it’s creamy instead of lumpy. In its normal state, cheese doesn’t melt well, so blending it in a blender or food processor will break it down and give it a creamy (not lumpy) texture. When you mix it with pesto sauce, you’re doing double duty by making it creamy and combining it with flavor.

Since fromage blanc has a fairly neutral flavor, like cream cheese with a slight tang, you don’t necessarily have to mix it with basil pesto. Try mixing it with sun-dried tomatoes, the best store-bought marinara sauce, or your own flavoring of choice. One idea is to toast garlic in olive oil, then add it to the fromage blanc along with lemon zest, chili flakes, and a little oregano. And if you don’t use the whole container, fromage blanc will keep for about two weeks in the refrigerator.

Using cottage cheese in pasta is delicious and, in addition, you will get a significant protein intake. Half a cup of whole milk cottage cheese contains 13 grams of protein.

White cheese is popular

You only need to take a look at social media to see that cottage cheese is making a comeback from its former reputation as a dreaded diet food of the ’80s and ’90s. People are using this dairy staple to make everything from bread to cookie dough to ice cream.

For pasta, cream cheese works just as well as a topping as it does as a sauce. Using it as a substitute for ricotta is delicious and easy: just use a one-to-one ratio for dishes like lasagna. Baked dishes like ziti also work great with cream cheese. In the latter two recipes, you don’t need to blend the cheese to get it smooth, but you can still do so if you like an ultra-smooth texture. In a dish like lasagna, which is made with several other ingredients, you may not notice the chunky texture of unblended cream cheese as much.

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