How to make the best homemade pesto with basil, nuts, garlic and olive oil.
Related: We love this easy homemade chimichurri sauce.
Easy to prepare, pesto is a versatile sauce for pasta, meat or vegetables. We use our food processor so it’s quick. You can also prepare it by hand with a mortar and pestle.
We love this recipe and make it often (especially in summer). It’s quick and easy to prepare. I’ll show you how to do it and give you our tips on how best to do it.
How to prepare our easy basil pesto
Pesto is easy to prepare. Place garlic, nuts, and fresh basil in a food processor, then drizzle with olive oil until a sauce forms.
To make it the best, let’s share a few tips we’ve learned over the years:
Tip 1: Blanch the basil. I know this sounds a little crazy, but trust me. Blanching basil yields the greenest pesto there is. Have you ever noticed that pesto turns brown over time in the fridge? Or even when adding it to hot pasta? Blanching the pesto prevents this. It fixes the bright green color of the leaves. In our recipe below, we blanch basil. If you are not convinced, you can use our recipe without blanching. It still works.
If you feel like it, blanching is easy. Submerge the basil leaves in boiling water for 5 to 10 seconds, then submerge in ice water. Pat the leaves dry and continue to prepare the pesto.
Tip 2: Process the garlic into a paste. We love garlic, but aren’t big fans of biting into big chunks (especially when it’s raw). That’s why we process the garlic into a paste before adding it to our pesto. To do this, mince the garlic, then scrape it across a cutting board with the flat side of a knife.
Tip 3: Finally, stir in the cheese. A little consistency in the sauce is a good thing. Instead of putting the cheese in the food processor, we make the pesto and then stir in the grated parmesan by hand, which gives it some texture.
Recipe Substitutions
- If you can’t find pine nuts, try walnuts instead. They are buttery and go well with pesto. You can also prepare pesto without nuts. The consistency will be different, but the sauce will still taste fresh and delicious.
- Add more herbs. Add a handful of parsley or mint leaves to our recipe below.
- Make vegan pesto. Substitute a non-dairy cheese for the cheese or add 2 to 3 tablespoons of nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast is nutty and cheesy.
- Add greens. An excellent option is to replace some, if not all, of the basil with spinach, Swiss chard, or beet greens. We’ve even done this before with kale.
What to do with pesto?
If you’re looking for ways to use pesto, you’ve come to the right place. Here are our favorite things to do with it:
Simple basil pesto with many tips
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PREPARATION
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COOK
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IN TOTAL
This basil pesto recipe won’t brown immediately when you make it or mix it with hot pasta. By quickly blanching the basil, which takes less than 10 seconds, we lock in the green color of the basil and prevent it from oxidizing over time. It’s an extra step in the pesto preparation process, but it doesn’t take long. If you don’t want to blanch the basil, you can omit it. Our recipe can be made with fresh or blanched basil.
Makes about 1 cup
you will need
2 cups fresh basil leaves
1 clove of garlic
1/4 cup pine nuts or walnuts, lightly toasted
1/2 cup olive oil, plus extra for storage
1/2 cup finely grated pecorino or parmesan cheese
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
directions
1Prepare a small bowl of ice water. Bring a small saucepan half filled with salted water to a boil. Submerge the basil leaves in boiling water for 5 to 10 seconds or until they wilt. Then immediately plunge into ice water to stop cooking. Drain, squeeze to remove excess water, then pat dry with a clean tea towel.
2Mash and peel the garlic clove, then finely chop. Hold a chef’s knife at an angle and stroke the chopped garlic with the knife blade. Gather everything together and scrape against the board again until a fine paste is formed.
3Combine the garlic paste and pine nuts in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse 2 to 3 times until finely chopped. Add basil.
4With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the bowl. After adding all the oil, check the consistency of the pesto – we want it to have some consistency. Pulse a few more times for a smoother pesto.
5Place the pesto in a bowl and mix in the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Use immediately or save for later.
Adam and Joanne’s tips
- To store pesto in the refrigerator: Drizzle a thin layer of additional olive oil on top (to prevent air from getting in), cover with a lid or plastic wrap, and refrigerate for up to two weeks.
- How to Freeze Pesto: When freezing, omit the cheese. Fill ice cube trays with pesto, freeze until hard. Then store the frozen cubes in freezer-safe plastic bags. Freeze up to 1 month.
- Nutritional Information: The nutritional information below is an estimate. We used the USDA database to calculate approximate values.
If you make this recipe, take a picture and tag it with the hashtag #inspiredtaste – we love to see your creations on Instagram and Facebook! Find us: @inspiredtaste
Nutritional value per serving
serving size
2 tablespoons
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calories
143
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total fat
15.4g
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Saturated Fatty Acids
2.9g
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cholesterol
3.6 mg
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sodium
90 mg
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carbohydrate
0.5g
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fiber
0.1g
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total sugar
0.1g
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protein
2.1g
Recipe updated originally posted August 2013. Since posting in 2013 we have tweaked the recipe to make it clearer. – Adam and Joanne