Sun-Dried Tomato and Bow Tie Pasta

My husband really enjoyed this and so did I! I made a few changes. I used 1/2 cup bottled pesto, about 5 ounces sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil & spices, used red pepper flakes instead of cayenne, and used thin spaghetti in place of bow tie pasta. I also grilled up two thinly sliced chicken breasts, cooked in a bit of the rich oil from the sun dried tomatoes jar. We had the chicken cut up on top of the pasta, with pine nuts and parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. Gourmet meal and something I would definitely make again!

Easy Recipe, looks great, and tastes great hot or cold. Fresh Basil makes it MUCH better as does a 1/4 cup of parmesan mixed in and 1/4 cup of pine nuts for a more gourmet flavor. No need to mince the nuts at all, try enjoying their buttery bite. And please don't "rinse" your oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes as another reviewer suggested, simply drain whatever amount of tomatoes you want to use, and adjust the amount of extra olive oil to your taste.

I changed the ingredients a little bit (and did a little rearranging). For the pesto, in the food processor I mixed the following: 2 cups fresh basil, 1 heaping tablespoon of minced garlic, 1/2 cup grated Parmesan, 1/3 cup olive oil, & 1/4 cup pine nuts. (I did not sauté more garlic). Instead of dried tomatoes, I used sundried tomatoes packed in oil and then left out the extra 1/8 cup oil. I also threw in about 1/4 cup of fat free half & half to simmer with the pesto/mushroom mix. Right before I tossed the mix with my fettuccine noodles, I added a huge bunch of fresh spinach and let it wilt before mixing it all together. All in all, it is a great recipe. I really think it would have been too dry with the original pesto ingredients but the flavor is amazing. I was shocked by the cayenne at first for some reason, but after a couple of bites it grew on me as something deliciously different.

With a few changes this can be an outstanding dish. One teaspoon of cayenne is overpowering. I would go to 1/2 to 3/4 tsp depending on taste. Make your own fresh pesto and add about 5-6 tablespoons of that. Very tasty, delightful recipe.

great recipe! Tastes like the beginning's of Macaroni Grill's chicken and bow tie pasta--all it lacks is some heavy cream and grilled chicken, which we will add next time for a main dish.

I am giving this five stars based on a few changes. I made regular pesto (3 C fresh basil, 1/5 C pine nuts, 1/4 c parmesan, 3/4 c olive oil, 3 cloves garlic) in the food processor. Then in a sauce pan I sauteed cut up chicken breast in olive oil with pepper and 1 t mined garlic. I then added the fresh mushrooms, cayenne pepper and 5 oz sundried tomatoes (The salt is not needed for this recipe). After all of that was cooked, I drained the excess oil before adding the pesto. I let it simmer until the pesto was warmed through and served over whole grain penne. I sprinkled parmesan on top of it all. It was absolutely delicious and looked really gourmet.

This recipe is great, minus the cayenne pepper. If you like spicy, keep it in, but if you want to be able to taste any other dish, I recomend taking it out. Also Classico make a great pesto sauce that I use instead of making my own. I think it turns out nicer. I also added more sundried tomatoes, mushrooms and I also put in some pine nets to give it a little something extra. Thank you for the recipe!

Very good but really greasy!. I was never told that Sun-Dried Tomatoes packed in oil need to be rinsed first.That was my screw up

This recipe was excellent. I read all the reviews and incorportated all the suggestions that others had made. I made the pasta the night before and it was wonderful the next day. My suggestion, add more mushrooms, less cayenne, toast the pine nuts and boil the tomatoes until soft enough to cut easily. This would also be excellent served hot with grilled chicken.

Nice - I think the dryness issue is solved by either using sun dried tomatoes packed in oil (it's not specified in the recipe) rather than dry OR rehydrate dried ones first. Also using fresh basil works better than the dried for any type of real pesto. The pine nuts (which I omit because I don't like them that well) and garlic will burn really quickly, so be quite careful.

This recipe was excellent. I really enjoyed it! I used fresh chopped basil instead of dried and also added shrimp to my dish. To combat dryness I added a 1/2 cup of water and 1-tablespoon of olive oil to the mushrooms/pesto sauce while I was waiting on the noodles to finish cooking. I didn't use pine nuts or cayenne. I added crushed red pepper to my dish separately for extra kick. I will save this recipe and use it again!

very good-followed advise of previous reviewer and used jarred pesto. I omitted mushrooms and then used jarred sun dried tomatos in oil-drain on paper towels before adding so not too oily.

This recipe was really good to me because I love sun-dried tomatoes but the spices were lacking a little. I followed the recipe to the t. The family was not so impressed so I probably won't make this again. Sorry.

This is one of our go to recipes. We love substituting dried mushrooms to make it easy to take camping. I've decreased the cayenne a little.

The cayenne pepper was a bit much and I enjoy spicy foods. I would tell anyone else making this to gradually add it in to suit your tastes. Other than that, the flavoring seemed a little bland, which was ironic given that the recipe calls for pesto and sun-dried tomatoes, two really great tasting ingredients. Not sure about this one...

Both my husband and I loved this, though we made a couple of minor changes. We liked it so much I'm making it for company tomorrow! A great dish for pasta that's not just another tomato sauce. I cheated and (per a previous post) used 6 TBL of Classico pesto sauce instead of making my own. I also used a large can of mushrooms, fresh ones always seem to disintegrate on me. Just for more color I threw in 1/2 can of drained petite diced tomatoes. (I don't think they added any flavor.) I used jarred marinated sun dried tomatoes and cut them into pieces with scissors, just threw them right in this way..no blanching. We used angel hair pasta just 'coz we had that - again, this was SO good! I also ate it room temp the next day, yummy still. A good dish for a pot luck. Like other reviewers mentioned, this only made enough sauce for about 10 oz of pasta. (Well, angel hair anyway.) And since hubby doesn't like spicy food, I only threw in two dashes of cayenne - that still gave it a good kick.

I loved this. I took advice of other reviewer and made fresh pesto with fresh basil, pine nuts and parm cheese. I also used sun dried tomatoes and omitted the extra oil.

Didn't taste like normal pesto and was a bit dry. Probably better to use fresh basil and maybe add some cream to make it moist?

Really Good!! I exchanged the pine nuts with Pistacios and added yellow and red peppers to it. Talk about colors and tasted. Very Good!!!

On the dry side. I would definetely tweek it next time.

A really great, easy pasta dish. I didn't have bow tie pasta so I just used rotini, and pine nuts are a bit expensive for my budget so I had to leave them out. Nonetheless, it think the pasta turned out really well and was a tasty weekend lunch. Thanks for sharing :)

It's good, but nothing overly special.

Made this for a special Valentine's dinner with my husband. Used suggestions of other reviews including adding toasted pine nuts and parmesan. I also added extra mushrooms and cooked them in oil from the sun dried tomatoes packed in oil. I used Classico jarred pesto also. It turned out very flavorful. Will definitely make again!!

I wish I read the reviews before making this. I just saw a bunch of 4-5 star reviews so I ran with it. But they are 4-5 star reviews based on altering the recipe almost entirely. So the recipe *AS IS*, is dry & a bit too spicy, even though I like hot foods. 4 Tbsp dry basil & 1 tbsp olive oil does not a pesto make. More or less a basil crumble. Then an entire tsp of cayenne pepper? It's a good flavor, just too much. At the end when the "sauce" was supposed to "simmer" I was a bit confused . The dry paste I had was not going to simmer. Next time I make this I will make a pesto with fresh basil (& half the amount of it), more olive oil & half the amount of cayenne. It's a good start & a good start & a good flavor, just dry & too hot.

This recipe turned out so well! I pretty much followed the recipe, except I added artichoke hearts and used whole wheat rotini instead of bow tie. I also mixed in some extra italian cheeses and some whole pine nuts at the end. Next time I will make it as an entree with some grilled chicken on top!

This was good, but you need to double the sauce, or it will be way too dry. You can use pre-made pesto as well.

It was ok as a base. It was too dry and needs a lot of tweaking.

This was good, I enjoyed it, though it wasn't as well received with the rest of the family. I went light on the cayenne and had to do some substitution with the pesto. The next time I make this, I'll use the following pesto recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pesto-Sauce/Detail.aspx. I believe that this will elevate this recipe to 5+ stars.

My family loves this supper. We add a little chicken to it.

great as a side dish or main!

WOW! This is now one of my favorite pasta dishes! What a wonderful combination of flavors with just a modist kick from the pepper! This is a must try.

Adding a little cream or half and half makes it nice a saucy.

this recipe was wonderful with a little bit of tweaking. First, I used walnuts instead of pine nuts. Second, I kept the sun-dried tomatoes in the boiling water for longer than 30 seconds. Probably a minute to a minute and a half. I also reduced the cayenne pepper and added sauteed zuchinni.

This is a great receipe. I altered it slightly. I added more garlic, mushroom , extra lemon juice and shrimp. Instead of feta cheese I used Parmesan.

It is now also one of my favourite meals!!! Great mixture of tatses!! It was really yummy!!! I left out the pepper, cause I'm not such a spice liker and i used shop bought pesto... But it was absolutely gorgeus!!

I tried this recipe exactly as described. The flavors were good but it seemed like the recipe turned out too dry. The oil is absorbed in the dried basil and dried tomatoes so their isn't much liquid left to simmer. I think fresh basil would have made a big difference, or prepared pesto from a jar.

I was surprised...this was really good! I replaced bow-tie pasta for a spiral wheat pasta and it was still great. I also added chicken. Next time I will add more mushrooms. Thanks!

very tastey and like it as something different than the same ole same ole.

I agree that the cayenne pepper was a bit much. I don't think heat goes well with pesto in my opinion. I'd recommend either omitting it, or very gradually at it as it's simmering towards the end.

I had to make a lot of changes per the comments...but it was a good place to start.

I so wanted to love this but the taste was just not quite enough. After reading the ingredients, and a couple of reviews, I did make some changes. I used about ¼ cup prepared pesto which I felt wasn’t enough. I also reduced the cayenne powder to ¼ tsp as I didn’t want the heat to overpower any flavour. I added red peppers, and olives as well. I think with some tweaking this could be tasty.

Too spicy, not enough flavor.

Made it with thin spaghetti and a jar of sun-dried tomatoes. Substituted oil from tomatoes to cook with. Left out any pepper. It was pretty good; I think I'll make it again.

Great recipe! I added more olive oil and stock. Also added some Italian seasonings. Finished it off with half and half and asiago cheese. Tossed in spaghetti. Marvelous

I used to eat a very similar dish at a New Orleans restaurant more than 20 years ago. It brought back many good memories and is a perfect dish for my vegan Mondays. Thanks for sharing!

Made it tonight. Easy peasy and very tasty! I left out the pine nuts (due to allergy) Added broccoli, used a hot pepper variety of sun-dried tomato, so I cut the hot pepper flakes down to half the amount. Also, I used fresh black and greek olives from our stores olive bar, and a mediterranean blend of feta cheese. Soooo good. Hubby really liked it too!

The flavor was very good. Pesto was a bit dry so I will add more olive oil next time. Also, the pepper made it SPICY. I will use 1/2 tsp next time.

Little too spicy, I recommend half to quarter teaspoon of Cheyenne instead of full teaspoon.

Yummy!!!

It's a family favorite. I also use bottled sun dried tomatoes to skip the whole blanching step.

Great summertime dish that goes with outdoor grilling. The only thing I did was to use fresh basil.