Calories in Pasta With Pesto

Pesto means paste, and interestingly, so does the word pasta. Pesto refers to a paste of herbs, nuts and oil used to flavor foods. Pasta refers to the dough or paste used to make spaghetti, rigatoni and other dried and fresh pastas.

Pasta Calories

Cooked homemade pasta with egg has 74 calories per 2 oz. serving, measured after cooking. Made without eggs, cooked homemade pasta such as lasagna noodles or ravioli wrappers has 71 calories per 2 oz. serving. Commercial dry pasta such as spaghetti has 211 calories per 2 oz. serving, before cooking.

Pesto Calories

Are Cellophane Noodles Low in Calories?

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A classic pesto sauce made with 2 tbsp. chopped walnuts or pine nuts, 2 cloves of garlic, 3 tbsp. olive oil, 4 cups of basil leaves, 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese and salt has 45 calories per serving. This recipe makes 16 servings, about 1 1/2 tbsp. per serving.

Considerations

A serving of pasta is 2 oz., according to package labels. However, many people actually eat 4 oz. of pasta in a serving. Four oz. of pasta and 3 tbsp. of pesto sauce would have a total of 510 calories.