Walnut Sauce Recipe: How to Make a Classic Walnut Sauce
Written by MasterClass
Last updated: Nov 30, 2024 • 2 min read
Walnut sauce is a creamy, classic Italian sauce you can add to any dry, fresh, or filled pasta for a relatively quick and easy weeknight meal.
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What Is Walnut Sauce?
Walnut sauce, or salsa di noci in Italian, is a creamy sauce consisting of chopped walnuts, olive oil, garlic, Parmesan cheese, and fresh herbs. The creamy sauce often accompanies pansotti (an herbaceous, filled ravioli) but works well with a variety of pasta shapes.
The sauce—also called a walnut pesto—is a pillar of cuisine in Liguria, a region in northwestern Italy. Ligurian cuisine is a combination of classic Italian with Mediterranean influences, given that Liguria’s coastline and capital, Genoa, are situated along the Italian Riviera. Basil pesto, made with fresh basil, pine nuts, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and garlic, is another popular sauce in the Italian Riviera.
3 Ways to Enjoy Walnut Sauce
Creamy walnut sauce has many uses, depending on how thick or thin you make the sauce. Here are a few ways you can enjoy this walnut-based sauce.:
- 1. As a gravy: You can use walnut sauce as a gravy for baked chicken or chicken Milanese. Thin out the chunky mixture with chicken stock or milk until you achieve a thick gravy consistency. Consider adding other traditional Italian flavors to the dish, like sun-dried tomatoes, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, crushed red pepper flakes, and fresh chopped parsley.
- 2. Over pasta: The most traditional way to enjoy walnut sauce is over pansotti or another stuffed pasta, such as a ricotta-filled ravioli or tortellini. However, the sauce works on any type of pasta—try it with gnocchi, fusilli, or linguine. You can reserve some of the pasta cooking water to thin out the sauce as needed.
- 3. Spread on bread: Make a thicker, chunkier walnut sauce to use as a spread for crostini—slices of toasted bread, like a baguette. In addition to walnut sauce, you can use olive tapenade or roasted garlic on crostini.
Walnut Sauce Recipe
makes
About 2 cupsprep time
10 mintotal time
25 mincook time
15 minIngredients
- 1
Soak the crustless bread in the milk until it’s completely saturated. Remove the bread from the milk and squeeze it with your hands to drain any excess liquid.
- 2
In a food processor (or you can use a mortar and pestle), place the bread, walnuts, cloves of garlic, marjoram, and Parmesan cheese. Pulse these ingredients until they are combined but still chunky.
- 3
With the food processor on, pour in the olive oil slowly. The mixture should become smooth.
- 4
Taste the sauce to adjust the seasoning if necessary. Add the salt and pepper and taste again.
- 5
If you plan to serve the walnut sauce over pasta, cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling water to al dente, or according to the package directions. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta cooking water.
- 6
To serve, place the walnut sauce in a large saucepan, add in the heavy cream and heat the sauce over low heat. Add in the pasta and cook for a few minutes, adjusting the consistency of the sauce with pasta water, as needed. After you plate your dish, it’s optional to top the pasta and sauce with any leftover or reserved chopped walnuts, toasted breadcrumbs, and Parmesan cheese.
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