Community Pick
Pesto
"Yummy addition to pasta, cheese spreads, salads on toasted crispy bread, grilled fish or chicken, pizza toppings, etc. You can jar it and use as needed! The olive oil is a judgment call on you own taste. If you want it thick and chunky or creamy.
Check out the video at this link http://www.recipezaar.com/sitenews/post.php?pid=963&pageref=Photo_Video-938497&vw_arrange_order=ASC&vw_sort_order=MOST_RECENT"
photo by limeandspoontt
- Ready In:
- 10mins
- Ingredients:
- 5
- Yields:
-
1 jar full
- Serves:
- 12
ingredients
- 2 cups packed home grown basil (or fresh as you can)
- 1⁄2 cup toasted pine nuts, cooled
- 1 cup grated parmesan cheese (either or both) or 1 cup romano cheese (either or both)
- 3 cloves crushed garlic
- 1⁄4 - 1⁄2 cup olive oil, depending on how creamy you want it
directions
- Put into a food processor first 4 ingredients. Pulse to blend.
- Slowly add oil through feed tube to make a nice paste.
Questions & Replies
-
If I want to make this non-dairy, what would be a good substitute for the cheese? ?
Reviews
-
Farmers Market day today so I bought fresh basil and made this great recipe for Pesto.. For about $2.50 worth of ingredients and a wee bit of effort I have about $10,00 worth of Pesto. After making it I placed about a tbsp of pesto in ice cube trays ( got 14) and froze them. Then removed them from the trays and placed them in a freezer bag so I can enoy this great recipe during the Winter too Thanks RitaL -
I used to be a private cook for a community of Italian priests with their own self-sustaining farm. This pesto is authentically Italian and far superior to the others here on food.com<br/> This particular recipe is a wonderful foundation recipe for one to try variations such as: more garlic, different nuts, different dried cheeses, and different oils. I suggest trying this recipe, verbatim before altering it in any way.<br/> This spread is excellent on French bread with sundried tomatoes and mozzarella cheese, placed under a broiler to melt the cheese. A glass of wine and chef's salad. Classic Italian dinner in the summertime. -
Lovely stuff. I used half parm, half romano and added 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. I also used roasted sunflower seeds-I'm allergic to pine nuts & went heavy on the extra virgin olive oil as we like pesto on the creamy side. We will inhale this tonight with dinner-thanks for posting! -
Can't do without this one no more! ;-) I freeze the pesto in an ice cube tray and then pop the cubes into a freezer box so we always have fresh pesto available when we need it. -
I had bushels of fresh basil left in my garden and needed to use it al before the first frost, so I made giant batches of this pesto for my freezer. Outstanding recipe. It has the perfect ratio of cheese, nuts and basil. I toasted my nuts and freshly grated some Pargiano Reggiano for that maximum flavor punch and added a little kosher salt and pepper to round it out. YUMMY!
see 88 more reviews
Tweaks
-
Really, really good pesto. I used parm, 1/2 cup olive oil, and I toasted some almonds instead of pinenuts (my son is allergic to peanut and I couldn't find pinenuts free of trace peanut, so I used Blue Diamond almonds which are peanut-free). And on the advice of a previous reviewer I added a pinch of salt. My husband, who normally doesn't get excited about pesto, loves it. Thanks for the recipe. -
One word: Amazing. And you should double the recipe so that you can go crazy on the sauce! And use Rotini pasta if you really want to impress! I used romano cheese instead of parmesan, added salt to taste, and broiled chicken cilantro sausage from Trader Joe's, then cut it up into the tossed pesto pasta. Thanks for the keeper!
-
Perfect amount of ingredients! Instead of pine nuts I used pecans, that's the only thing I did differently. Great! Thx Rita! -
This is a really good pesto, but I made some changes to it. My family seems to feel that shredded parmesan (or maybe freshly grated parmesan) is better. The freshness certainly enhances the flavor. I also used the 1/2 cup or even a little more of the olive oil (extra virgin, of course) As Southerners, we use toasted pecans instead of pine nuts and like that a lot. Thanks for the recipe!
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
Rita1652
Jamesburg, New Jersey
