The easiest spaghetti pesto with fresh garden tomatoes! You’ll love this super simple dinner that only requires 4 ingredients and minimal effort.

Hand holding a fork in a ceramic bowl with spaghetti and cherry tomatoes.

Wanna make a really tasty pasta dish that requires only 4 ingredients and a few minutes to whip together? Okay okay. I gotchu.

You’ll love the flavors of this simple spaghetti tossed with pesto, parmesan cheese, and bursting garden tomatoes (because we all have an abundance of those right now!).

For this recipe, I left the tomatoes raw – I usually roast them. But I found I loved the texture and flavor of them just as they are! Especially when paired with the warm, cheesy, garlic-y pesto noodles. Yessss.

Let’s get cookin’!

The 4 Ingredients You Need

Yes, you heard correctly. Just FOUR ingredients needed for this meal! All you’ll need for this is basil pesto, cherry tomatoes, parmesan cheese, and noodles!

Pesto: you can either make your own pesto or keep it simple and purchase it at the store! See notes in recipe card for my walnut basil pesto recipe.

Tomatoes: I used an assortment of cherry tomatoes for this recipe, but you can also use larger tomatoes and cut them into smaller pieces as well.

Pasta: I made this with spaghetti noodles, but you can also switch things up and make it with penne, rotini, or bowtie pasta too.

How to Make Pesto Spaghetti

Cook pasta as box instructs. Add spaghetti, a little pasta water, pesto, and parmesan cheese to a bowl.

Tongs tossing spaghetti and pesto in a clear glass bowl.

Tongs tossing spaghetti in a clear glass bowl.

Toss ingredients together. Then serve with tomatoes and extra cheese if needed.

Extra Recipe Tips

Cooking pasta: make sure to not over cook pasta, if it’s too soft it can fall apart and be an unpleasant texture.

Use pasta water: when cooking pasta it’s important to always make use of the water that it cooks in. A few tablespoons of it in this recipe will help the noodles from drying out.

Salt pasta water: it’s always good to generously salt your pasta water, in fact it’s actually hard to over salt it. It’ll give your pasta a wonderful flavor as well as the little bit of pasta water you use in the recipe!

What can I do with leftovers?

Store leftovers in fridge sealed in a glass container for 3-5 days. Reheat (with tomatoes) in a cast iron skillet pan with a little bit of oil. Refresh with pesto if needed.

What can I serve with this spaghetti?

You can serve this spaghetti with grilled or roasted chicken for protein, or keep it vegetarian with a side of sweet potatoes and salad.

I hope you enjoy this simple and delicious recipe! You’ll find in this dish that you can develop quite a bit of flavor with little ingredients and time. I know you’ll love it!

More Pasta Recipes to Try