Tallarines verdes – Peruvian green pastafeatured

Translating to ‘green noodles’ in Spanish, tallarines verdes is an herbaceous, creamy and delicious Peruvian pasta dish. Make it using two parts spinach to one part basil, along with the addition of queso fresco, evaporated milk and walnuts. Its the highly nutritious pasta dish you need to add to your rotation!

Tallarines verdes is a quick and simple pasta dish that makes a perfect side to chicken or steak, or standalone meal.

This recipe was updated in January 2025 with a new method for an even creamier tallarines verdes*

How to make tallarines verdes

I love to make tallarines verdes with linguine, but you can use whatever pasta shape you wish.

Start your sauce by sauteing roughly chopped onions and garlic in olive oil briefly to release their flavours. Toss in your spinach and basil and cook until the greens soften, a few minutes longer.

Next, transfer the greens, onion and garlic to your blender or food processor. While I have done it both ways, lately I have switched to primarily using my Vitamix blender for the smoothest possible sauce. Either method will yield a great result.

Blend ingredients until smooth.

Turning to your pasta, cook according to the package instructions for al-dente results, but reduce that cooking time by a minute or two. You will finish cooking it in the sauce. Don’t forget to reserve a cup of pasta water before draining the pasta!

Next, heat your sauce on the stovetop, then toss in the pasta and pasta water and cook together until your noodles are well coated, and that’s it!

Buen provecho! Enjoy!

Print Recipe

Tallarines verdes (Peruvian green spaghetti)

A delicious and creamy spinach and basil pesto pasta.

Course: Dinner, lunch, pasta

Cuisine: Latin, Peruvian

Keyword: basil, pasta, pesto, spaghetti, spinach

Author: Dahlia

Equipment

• Food processor
• Blender

Ingredients

• 2 TBS olive oil
• 5 oz spinach preferably not baby spinach
• 2-3 oz basil
• 1 small onion coarsely chopped
• 1 clove garlic roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup walnuts
• 5 oz queso fresco substitute feta if you cannot find queso fresco
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk plus more if needed
• 1 lb dry linguine or other pasta of choice

Instructions

• Drizzle olive oil into a large pot on stove, over medium heat. Add chopped onions, saute until softened but do not brown them.
• Add garlic and stir until fragrant.
• Add spinach and basil and continue stirring. Cook until all the greens have softened.
• Toss the contents of the pot, along with walnuts, cheese and evaporated milk into your blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Add more evaporated milk if necessary to get the consistency you’d like.
• Taste and add salt as needed, It may not need much salt, as the cheese may be quite salty.
• Cook your pasta to al dente based on the box instructions. Reserve a cup of pasta water and drain pasta.
• Add the sauce to your pot and heat over medium heat until it begins to bubble along the edges.
• Add pasta and toss thoroughly in sauce.
• Add reserved pasta water as needed to thin sauce and get the sauce to attach well to the pasta.