Conchiglioni, or Giant Pasta Shells With Pesto served with asparagus and bacon makes a quick weeknight dinner that’s interesting enough to serve to guests.
Updated 2026 · Now with printable recipe
Aaah English asparagus season is just about still with us and I’m enjoying a couple of bundles each week whilst it lasts.
This quickly assembled pasta dish is given greater gravitas with the inclusion of these gigantic pasta shells – conchiglioni to give them their technical term – which look like ones from Carluccio’s but were in fact by Tesco Finest range.
Conchiglioni seem so much grander and bountiful than ordinary conchiglie pasta shells. I’ve fed them to dinner guests whereas I’d probably not serve up their smaller relatives.
Now I know pasta is possibly the ultimate convenience food and yes you can boil it in 10 minutes so yes of course you can get it on the table in 30 minutes. BUT – I don’t want to see any short cut bottled sauces nor ragus requiring aeons of bubbling away.
I’m intending to publish this pesto in its own right so the ingredients list for the main pasta recipe below says simply “pesto”. For now I’ll leave the pesto ingredients here incase you wish to make your own:
The Vitamix pesto ingredients were:
- 75g parmesan cheese cut into chunks
- 2 handles of Greek basil (or normal, Greek just happened to be what I had)
- 1 handful of rocket leaves (poking out slightly here)
- 50g walnut pieces
- 2 cloves garlic (or in my case a squeeze of lazy stuff)
- 75ml (ish) olive oil – add whatever you need for consistency you like.
And this is what you get after a minute or so using the Vitamix puree program. Lush Kermit coloured paste.
Whilst the pasta was boiling I chopped up the asparagus (after removing woody stems) and snipped up bacon with kitchen scissors.
Fry the asparagus for a few minutes in olive oil.
Then add the bacon and fry for a few minutes until cooked.
Drain the cooked pasta and toss in the pesto, asparagus and bacon. Shave over some more parmesan and serve!
Giant Pasta Shells With Pesto, Asparagus and Bacon
Ingredients
- 250 g Conchiglioni Giant pasta shells
- 1 tsp salt for the pasta water
- 125 g pesto homemade or from a jar
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 150 g bacon cut into strips, or buy ready-made lardons
- 1 bunch asparagus chopped into 2 inch pieces, tough stems removed
- 2 tbsp parmesan cheese or Grana Padano, or Pecorino, grated or shaved for topping
Instructions
- In a large pan of salted water, bring the pasta shells up to the boil and simmer for around 12 minutes until "al dente". Drain the pasta and return to the pan - add a tablespoon of olive oil to prevent it sticking.
- Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Fry the bacon lardons whilst the pasta simmers. When these are cooked but not brown yet, add the asparagus pieces and continue to fry.
- When both the pasta, bacon and asparagus are cooked, turn the frying pan heat off. Stir the pesto into the pasta, when the pasta is covered, stir in the bacon and asparagus.
- Serve with a scattering of parmesan cheese shavings.
I am currently roadtesting a machine supplied with the compliments of Vitamix.
Bookmark these Giant Pasta Shells With Pesto, Asparagus and Bacon for later!
For another pasta dish using pesto try my One-pot Spaghetti with Broccoli, Spinach and Peas and for another type of pesto, try Cobnut Pesto.
Delicious and super speedy. I could not live without a decent blender now.
Thank you for sending to #ExtraVeg!
The asparagus with the homemade pesto sounds like a wonderful combination. It’s a lovely green dish too, which always makes me feel healthy!
Mine is a ‘fakeaway’ pasta! Hope that is ok!! Thanks for hosting the linky… I’ll be sure to bookmark it for the future:-)