Pasta with kale pesto and crispy garlic greens

Two textures from one favourite winter green in this speedy weeknight pasta: a bright-green kale sauce and a kale and garlic crunch. The sauce comes together in the time it takes to cook the pasta. This is my go-to sort of cooking: quick to bring together, but interesting and complex to eat.

Prep 5 min
Cooking 20 min
Serves 4
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800g kale (or cavolo nero), leaves stripped off the stalks and torn into bite-size pieces
Salt and black pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 pinch dried chilli flakes, or to taste
2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
400g dried pasta – I use rigatoni
100g parmesan (I use a vegetarian one), grated

Put a third of the kale in a bowl, add a little salt and olive oil, and scrunch it all up with your fingers. Add the dried chilli and a good grind of black pepper, then leave it to sit.

Fill a large pan with very well salted water – it should be salty like the sea – and bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, put four tablespoons of oil and the garlic in a small frying pan. Put on a medium heat, cook until the edges of the garlic begin to sizzle and turn light golden, then take the pan off the heat.

Drop the pasta into the boiling water and cook for a minute less than the packet instructions.

While the pasta is cooking, put the fried garlic in a food processor with the remaining unseasoned kale, 60ml extra-virgin olive oil, a good pinch each of salt and pepper, and a little splash of the pasta cooking water, then blitz to a smooth, bright-green paste.

Put the frying pan back on the heat and add a glug of oil. Once it’s really hot, add the scrunched kale and fry, stirring, until it’s crisp and a little crunchy.

When the pasta is ready, drain it, reserving a mugful of the cooking water, then return the pasta to the pot and stir in the kale sauce and parmesan. Add the reserved pasta water little by little and toss until you have a smooth, silky sauce coating all the pasta.