I didn’t know that I liked pesto sauce until I made my own. Now I love it, and I never buy it in the store. I always make enough to freeze so that I can have it whenever I need it. I freeze it in small containers with lids, like the ones you would use to transport a serving or two of salad dressing with your lunch.
The recipe doesn’t have salt and pepper added, so remember to add it when you are using the pesto with your entree. If you’d like to add salt and pepper to it, just add about a teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper.
I use regular olive oil for this recipe, because I always cook my pesto when I use it. After boiling pasta and removing it to drain, I use the same pan to cook the pesto for a minute or two with a tablespoon of cream before adding the pasta back in to coat it with the sauce. It is sometimes hard to find regular olive oil, so extra virgin olive oil will work too, if that is what you have. Just remember that extra virgin olive oil is supposed to be used in cold salads, and not cooked at a high temperature – but just cooking the pesto for a minute in a pan is fine. Other things to cook with the pesto for a minute can be some cooked chicken, sauteed zucchini, caramelized onions, sun-dried tomatoes. All or any make a nice pesto pasta dish addition.
If your food processor is a small one, cut this recipe in half when you make it.
Homemade Pesto Sauce – Pesto doesn’t have to be just Basil!
Equipment
- 1 Food Processor
Ingredients
- 2 oz fresh basil or other green herbs including stems This is a big container of basil you buy at the store, and is about two cups of basil packed tightly. I have made wonderful pesto with just fresh carrot tops, or a mix of carrot tops, parsley, cilantro, basil. Don't let those carrot tops or extra herbs you didn't use in another recipe go to waste!
- 6 cloves garlic, large, minced or peeled and chopped a little
- 6 T pine nuts
- ⅔ C Parmesan cheese, grated or shaved or shredded
- ⅔ C olive oil
Instructions
- Put the basil into the food processor, along with the garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese. Blend the ingredients coarsely.
- Drizzle the olive oil into the food processor a little bit at a time and pulse the ingredients to blend in the olive oil. Stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor, then drizzle and pulse some more. After all the olive oil is drizzled in, pulse a little bit more to make sure everything is blended.
- If you want to add salt and pepper to taste, go ahead. Otherwise just remember to add some salt and pepper while cooking the dish that uses the pesto sauce.