Asparagus and halloumi pasta with smoky tomato pesto
Hellllooo, halloumi. Bringer of happiness, upgrader of barbecues, squeaker of teeth. I use halloumi all the time, but I realised the other day* that 99% of the time, I serve my halloumi with bread. Halloumi burgers, halloumi pittas, halloumi bruschetta… all good stuff, but today I thought I’d make something different – halloumi pasta! Cheese and pasta are a match made in heaven, but somehow I’ve always overlooked halloumi as a pasta accompaniment. Never again. It’s brilliant.
*when I’m alone, my mind often wanders to thoughts of cheese.
Did you know that there are now five times as many online searches for ‘halloumi’ than there were 5 years ago? I’m not even sure I’d heard of the stuff five years ago (though I always knew there was something missing from my life…), and now it’s one of my favourite ingredients to cook with. To be honest quite a large chunk of those online searches were probably made by me, but hopefully you guys have become as enamoured with the stuff as I have, and hopefully you’ll enjoy this asparagus and halloumi pasta.
I started with some pretty little twisty pasta that I found at Waitrose (if you want to try it, I believe it’s called ‘strozzapreti’, which is impossible to say in anything other than an extremely exaggerated Italian accent). Waitrose have very much got behind the recent halloumi trend, with a whole section of their site dedicated to halloumi recipes (I will definitely be trying roasted halloumi very soon!).
Then I just tossed the lovely Waitrose pasta and the squidgy halloumi together with some veggies and the beautiful smoky tomato pesto, which is super easy to make. It starts life as a simple sun-dried tomato pesto, but instead of adding olive oil, I used Greek yogurt to make it nice and creamy (does it still count as pesto? meh), and also some smoked paprika, which adds an incredible flavour. The crispy halloumi goes so, so amazingly well with the smoky sauce. I’m kicking myself for not putting paprika in pesto sooner.
Are you as big a lover of halloumi as I am? If you’ve never tried it before, check out my guide to cooking halloumi perfectly, and then try out my halloumi pasta – or one of the other lovely halloumi recipes on the Waitrose site!
Asparagus and halloumi pasta with smoky tomato pesto
Ingredients
- 1 small clove garlic
- Small bunch fresh herbs (I used basil and parsley)
- 1 tbsp pine nuts
- 5 pieces sun-dried tomato
- 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
- 2 tbsp Greek yogurt
- Salt
- Black pepper
- 125 g halloumi, diced (~ 1 cup diced)
- 6 spears asparagus
- 1 small courgette (zucchini)
- 300 g fresh pasta (~ 3 cups)
- Fresh rocket (arugula), optional, to serve
Instructions
- To make the smoky tomato pesto, add the small clove of garlic to a mini food processor with the fresh herbs and pine nuts. Blitz until finely chopped. Add the sun-dried tomatoes and smoked paprika, and blitz again. Finally, add the Greek yogurt and plenty of salt and pepper, and blitz to combine.
- Add the diced halloumi to a dry frying pan, and cook over a medium heat for a few minutes, until the underside is crispy and golden brown. Turn the halloumi pieces over, and repeat with the other side.
- While the halloumi is cooking, cut the asparagus into 2 inch pieces, and shave ribbons from the courgette using a vegetable peeler. When the halloumi is fairly crispy, add the vegetables to the frying pan, and cook for a few minutes, tossing regularly, until the vegetables are tender.
- Boil the fresh pasta according to the instructions on the packet (usually around 3-8 minutes), until cooked al dente. Drain the pasta, reserving a few tablespoons of the cooking liquid.
- Add the smoky tomato pesto and the cooked vegetables and halloumi to the pasta, and mix well. You may wish to add a couple of tablespoons of the pasta cooking water to loosen up the sauce a little. Cook over a low heat for a couple of minutes, until warm. Serve garnished with some fresh rocket (arugula) if desired.
Note: Nutritional information is approximate, and will depend on exactly what ingredients you choose. Information above is for 1/3 of the recipe.
Here’s my foolproof method for cooking halloumi perfectly, giving a crispy outside and a gooey middle:
Hello, new favourite! :) This was totally delicious! I did make three small changes – used creme fraiche instead of yogurt because that’s what I had open in my fridge. I used dried pasta, and I increased the quantities of everything except the pasta, so as to have it more vegetable-y :D Thanks for the recipe!
Thanks Marubi, so glad you liked it :) Thanks for the feedback!
Really difficult to get hold of pine nuts at the moment, so I used cashew nuts instead and it was gorgeous. Really good recipe and the kids adore haloumi so this is going in the recipe file for future use – and that is a really good way to cook haloumi in the dry pan, I have always grilled it previously and it can go a bit dry doing it like that, this way it stayed moist with a lovely crispy outside. thanks
So glad you all enjoyed this Abby, thanks for reporting back! :)
We love Halloumi and this looks amazing, I know my family would love it! Must check out the other Waitrose recipes too:-)
I made this on Saturday night, but didn’t have any courgettes or sundried tomatoes, so I used some tomato confit instead. We still have halloumi left over, so I’m making it tonight with some sundried tomato puree and either beans or baby corn or even both instead of the asparagus as we are on Empty the Refrigerator Night. Other half was pleased when I told him that was what we were having for supper tonight.
So happy you liked it Helen! And your other half too :D I can never follow a recipe to the letter so I like how you’ve made it your own :)
The Other Half loves his cheese, so anything involving cheese is automatically good unless it contains stuff he doesn’t like, like mustard or horseradish. To my total embarrassment, we had no usable herbs in the fridge, so I had to improvise and use some broccolli instead, I had one of those packs of broccoli, baby corn and beans. Still yummy.
Haha that’s not embarrassing at all! Sounds great.
This was absolutely delicious. Because I’m an idiot forgot to pick up pine nuts and sun-dried tomatoes. So instead I used half a jar of red pesto and added the fresh herbs (basil and parsley), garlic, greek yogurt, salt and pepper. I can’t believe I never though of adding halloumi to pasta before, genius.
This is the second recipe of your I’ve tried with great success, I’m pretty much having a week of Amuse Your Bouche!
Thanks for your lovely comment Sarah, glad you enjoyed this one! And I’m so happy to hear that this is your second success – what else have you made? Keep it up :D
Now that looks lush – fab combo!
I made this tonight it was delicious!
Awesome! Thanks so much for the feedback, really glad you liked it :D
We’ve done it again! I’ve just paired Halloumi with courgette too. Lovely stuff and I am drooling over this pasta even though it’s breakfast time. Stumbled, yummed, pinned & tweeted.
Halloumi and courgette go so well together! The salty cheese is just what courgette needs, since it doesn’t have a huge flavour on its own :)
I looooooooooooooooove halloumi – the squeaky cheese! It’s so good grilled and barbequed and even deep fried!!!!!
Ooooh yes deep fried in batter! Sooo good. But deep fried cheese isn’t something I allow myself to eat too often haha
I’ve never even heard of halloumi.. it sounds delicious!! Any kind of hot flavorful cheese is my jam. This looks amazing!
It really is delicious, you should keep your eyes peeled for it! It’s salty and squeaky and just soo good :)
I have no idea what halloumi is. haha! But I’m with you, when I’m alone I think of cheese… and chocolate. ;) Your pasta sure looks tempting!
If you’ve never had halloumi you have to find some and give it a try! It’s a fairly solid, salty cheese which you can grill or fry, and it gets nice and crispy and soft without melting. It’s become really popular here in the UK in the past few years – sorry, I should have explained what it was for people in other countries!
There are so many of my favourite foods in this one pasta dish, I have to try it ASAP!
Yes! Halloumi is one of my very favorites! I moved recently and finally found a local source and I’ve been chowing down on it like crazy. This sounds delicious!
I don’t blame you, it’s one of my favourites too :)
I can’t believe this foodie still hasn’t tried halloumi! Your combination of flavors is lovely, and I bet that smoked paprika makes the pesto sing! Pinning for later :-)
Whaaat! You must try it, it’s amazing. So lovely and chewy and crispy on the edges!
I love the sound of this! I’ve added smoked paprika to tomato sauces in things with cheese in them before and that’s a match made in heaven….but never thought of halloumi!
Re the sauce: do you use dried sundried tommies or oil-packed ones?
I used the oil-packed ones and drained them briefly on some paper before using them. But I’m sure either kind would work :)