Pesto Sauce
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Homemade pesto sauce is easy to whip up and delicious on just about everything—from pastas and pizzas to salads and sandwiches.
One of my favorite things about summer cooking is stepping out my back door to pick fresh herbs from my potted herb garden. It always amazes me how the tiny seedlings I plant in May grow into more herbs than I can possibly use up by August. When the basil is overflowing, it’s pesto time! Pesto, or pesto alla Genovese, is a vibrant, garlicky green sauce from Genoa, Italy. While the traditional method uses a mortar and pestle, these days, a food processor makes it a breeze. This versatile sauce is fantastic on everything—from pastas and pizzas to salads, vegetable soup, and sandwiches. What’s even better? It freezes like a dream, so you can enjoy a taste of summer all year long!
What You’ll Need To Make Pesto Sauce
Traditional pesto is made with garlic, nuts, salt, basil leaves, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and extra-virgin olive oil. It’s important to use top-quality ingredients, as the flavors really shine through.
For the cheese, be sure to use authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano from Italy; domestic Parmesan is not the same thing. You can always tell if the cheese is authentic by looking at the rind, which is embossed with the name over and over. If the cheese is already grated, it should be labeled “Parmigiano-Reggiano,” not “Parmesan.”
For the nuts, I use walnuts instead of the more traditional pine nuts for a few reasons. First, I always seem to have walnuts in the house (pine nuts can be very pricey). Second, in recent years an increasing number of people, including me, have fallen prey to a bizarre problem with pine nuts called Pine Mouth Syndrome, a bitter, metallic taste in the mouth that develops a day or two after eating pine nuts. It can last for weeks and make eating or drinking anything very unpleasant. (You can use pecans or almonds, too.)
Step-by-Step Instructions
To begin, combine the walnuts and garlic in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped.
Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper.
Process until finely chopped.
Then, with the food processor running, add the olive oil through the feed tube in a steady stream.
Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Process again until smooth, and that’s your pesto sauce.
How To Store & Freeze Pesto
Use the pesto immediately or store it in a tightly sealed jar or air-tight plastic container, covered with a thin layer of olive oil (this seals out the air and prevents the sauce from oxidizing, which would turn it an ugly brown color). It will keep in the refrigerator for about a week.
Pesto can also be frozen in an airtight container for up to 6 months. I suggest dividing it into the compartments of an ice cube tray and freezing. Once frozen, remove the cubes from the tray and put in a sealable plastic bag or airtight container. You can add the defrosted cubes to vegetable soup, pasta salad with pesto, zucchini noodles, pesto pizza, eggs, sandwiches, and baked potatoes.
Video Tutorial
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The Best Basic Pesto
Homemade pesto sauce is easy to whip up and delicious on just about everything—from pastas and pizzas to salads and sandwiches.
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup walnuts
- 2 large garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- 2 cups packed fresh basil leaves
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ⅔ cup extra virgin olive oil
- ½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Instructions
- Place the walnuts and garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process until coarsely chopped, about 10 seconds. Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper and process until mixture resembles a paste, about 1 minute. With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil through the feed tube and process until the pesto is thoroughly blended. Add the Parmesan and process a minute more. Use pesto immediately or store in a tightly sealed jar or air-tight plastic container, covered with a thin layer of olive oil (this seals out the air and prevents the pesto from oxidizing, which would turn it an ugly brown color). It will keep in the refrigerator for about a week.
- Freezer-Friendly Instructions: Pesto can be frozen in an airtight container for up to 6 months. You can also divide your prepared pesto into the compartments of an ice cube tray and freeze. Once it’s frozen, remove the pesto cubes from the tray and put in a sealable plastic bag or airtight container. You can add the defrosted pesto cubes to soups, pasta dishes, eggs, sandwiches, and potatoes.
Nutrition Information
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- Serving size: 2 Tbsp.
- Calories: 159
- Fat: 17 g
- Saturated fat: 3 g
- Carbohydrates: 1 g
- Sugar: 0 g
- Fiber: 0 g
- Protein: 3 g
- Sodium: 161 mg
- Cholesterol: 4 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Gluten-Free Adaptable Note
To the best of my knowledge, all of the ingredients used in this recipe are gluten-free or widely available in gluten-free versions. There is hidden gluten in many foods; if you're following a gluten-free diet or cooking for someone with gluten allergies, always read the labels of your ingredients to verify that they are gluten-free.
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Do you think you could use this pesto sauce recipe over pasta?
Definitely!
Hi Jen – your recipes are incredible! One question on this, if I wanted to make a “creamy pesto” and add some half and half, would that work here?
Hi Haley, I haven’t tried this before, but you could try replacing half the oil with 1/2 & 1/2. I’d love to hear how it turns out if you try it!
You can also freeze it… I have and it lasts for at least a year.
How much pasta will this recipe dress?
Good question Sally– maybe about 1 1/2 pounds of pasta (but it depends upon how “pesto-y” you want it). I’d suggest starting with a pound as any leftovers are also delicious on roasted veggies and potatoes, mixed into soup, or just spread on crackers.
What type of walnut? Black oe English??
Thank you.
English walnuts will work best here. Enjoy!
Made this last week and it was wonderful! I unfortunately cannot remember how much garlic I put in it and the bulbs that I have now have what I would describe as “huge” cloves. How much would you say a “large” garlic clove coarsely chopped is in teaspoons?
Hi Jan, 1 teaspoon of chopped garlic is the equivalent of about 2 average-sized cloves, so I’d just use your judgment based on how strong a garlic flavor you like.
Once again my pesto came out incredibly bitter. Inedibly so. What have I done wrong? Followed precisely. Any ideas?
Hi Dawn, This definitely shouldn’t taste bitter! Could the cheese have been bad, by any chance? Also, you used walnuts (and not pine nuts)?
Mine was also a bit bitter, I’m thinking the basil wasnt as fresh as possible.
Hi,
This is a classic recipe; I came looking for ratios. I ended up making a 20X recipe —- it freezes well! I make a couple additions to this pesto. In the basic amounts there, I would use juice from a 1/2 lemon. This helps emulsify the pesto, and like salad dressings, emulsification is a good thing. Also, I use additional pepper — in this batch, I used 1/3 black (Tellicherry) pepper, 1/3 pink, and 1/3 cubeb berries. If you don’t know what cubeb berries (pepper) are, look it up and get some! You and your guests will appreciate it!
Lovely recipe! The blender was on the fritz so I had to do all the chopping by hand but I frankly like walnuts more than pine nuts so this recipe was perfect for me
I just made this for the first time ever and WOW! Super easy and soooo delish! I actually don’t have a good processor, so I made it in my Bullet and it came out great! I added a couple tablespoons of lemon juice, since the bullet really emulsified it, it seemed to need more liquid. Delish! Thank you for posting this recipe!!