How to Make Perfect Pesto Every Time Cooking Lessons from The Kitchn

For best appearance, use pesto right away. If storing, store it in the smallest container possible and thoroughly press the pesto to eliminate air pockets. Pour a little olive oil over the surface, cover, and refrigerate for up to a week.

It's always tempting to eat pesto by the spoonful. It's so very fresh and so very green. And those flavors of basil, pine nut, parmesan, garlic, and olive oil just play so very nicely together. Spread it on sandwiches, toss it with pasta, or yes, treat yourself a single happy spoonful, but definitely absolutely positively make pesto any chance you get.

Besides how heavenly it tastes, the other thing I love about pesto is that it can be whatever you want it to be. Traditional Italian pesto is, of course, made strictly with basil, pine nuts, parmesan, garlic, and really good olive oil. It's a classic sauce, no contest.

But you can switch out the basil for another handy herb or leafy green, replace the (crazy expensive, if delicious) pine nuts with a different favorite nut, or swap the parm for pecorino or asiago. Use more or less of anything to suit your tastes. Heck, you can even make a lower-fat pesto by replacing some of the olive oil with ricotta cheese!

Bottom line: green + nuts + cheese + olive oil = awesome sauce, literally. Whiz it up in a blender and you can't go wrong.

What's your favorite way to make pesto?

How to Make Pesto

Makes about 1 cup

What You Need

Ingredients

5-6 ounces (2 healthy bunches or about 6 cups gently packed) basil leaves, or any other green
1/2 cup pine nuts, or any other nut
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese, or any other hard cheese
1-2 garlic cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4-1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Equipment

Blender or food processor

Instructions

1. Blend Half the Basil With Nuts, Cheese, and Garlic: Combine half of the basil with the nuts, cheese, cloves, and salt in a blender or food processor. Blend continuously until the ingredients are finely chopped.

2. Blend the Rest of the Basil: Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the rest of the basil. Blend until a uniform paste has formed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

3. Stream in the Olive Oil: With the blender running, stream in the olive oil. Less olive oil will make a paste good for spreading on sandwiches and pizzas; more will make a sauce better for pastas and stirring into soup. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and continue blending as needed until the olive oil is emulsified into the basil and the pesto looks uniform.

4. Taste and Adjust: Taste the pesto and add more salt, garlic, nuts or cheese as needed to taste.

5. Storing Pesto: Pesto will darken and brown very quickly, but will still be tasty and fresh for several days. For best appearance, use it right away. If storing, store it in the smallest container possible and thoroughly press the pesto to eliminate air pockets. Pour a little olive oil over the surface, cover, and refrigerate for up to a week. Pesto can also be frozen for several months.

More Pesto Recipes to Try:

• Orzo Salad with Spinach Pesto, Olives, and Feta
• Spring Greens Pesto
• Green Beans with Almond Pesto
• Lemon Braised Chicken and Beans with Mint Pesto
• Dandelion Pumpkin Seed Pesto
• Nutty Farro Pasta with Edamame Pesto

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(Images: Emma Christensen)

Comments (20)

You can preserve the bright green color by blanching your basil beforehand. It will wilt way down like spinach does, but I find that my food processor does even better with the damp basil (I press it with paper towels after blanching). I have batches in my freezer that look as green as the day I made them. I also blanch my garlic cloves to soften their flavor a bit. Oh, and don't forget to toast your pine (or other) nuts to bring out their flavor!

I can't get enough of Arugula Pesto this summer
http://careyonlovely.blogspot.com/2012/08/simple-secret-arugula-pesto.html

You can also take Marcella Hazan's pesto-freezing advice and make it without the cheese, if it's going to be frozen right away:

http://www.culinate.com/user/Verdura+Caroline/recipes/verdura_recipes/marcella_hazans_pesto

I like a good squeeze of lemon juice in my pesto - helps keep it bright green.

A squeeZe of lemon juice and a touch of zest brightens and helps with keeping it green.

I reserve half of the pinenuts, chop them very coarsely, and toss them in before mixing the pesto with the pasta -- gives you a bit of crunch and little bursts of nutty flavor!

we saw an old post on thekitchn about using avocado in place of most of the oil and we LOVE making pesto pasta this way:

http://www.beyondthestoop.com/2011/10/15-minute-creamy-avacado-pasta.html

cheers :D

I made arugula walnut pesto for the first time, and it was incredible. I used it as a topping for grilled pizza with prosciutto, nectarines, and a little blue cheese--just fantastic.

I make gallons and gallons of pesto annually and freeze it in ice cube trays and do not put my ingredients in the food processor in the same order as this recipe.

I never add cheese to the food processor; we always add it when plating up the pesto.

Whir the garlic, oil, salt, pepper (optional but I recommend it), and a bit of lemon juice ( I make mine with about 5-6 packed cups of basil at a time and use 1.5 to 2 tsp of lemon juice. )

Then add the basil (organic, please) and PULSE it until about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way to the consistency you like. It's not supposed to be a puree, pesto is traditionally ground by hand with a mortar and pestle.

Finally, add the nuts and pulse carefully until everything is the correct consistency. If the nuts go in at the beginning, you end up with nut butter.

This technique yields pesto that is bright green and tastes fresh and pesto-y in the dead of winter, not to mention that every little bit of the fresh pesto left in the food processor is eagerly wiped out with a bit of bread by any member of my family.

I agree with Mid-C Frank about coarsely chopping for bursts of flavor, I read somewhere that pesto tastes better with distinct nuggets, rather than blending everything together, so I chopped everything with a cleaver. It was delicious and kind of fun.

Pesto: chop instead of the food processor - this is fun and engaging and the difference between something good, and Something Special - last night my 8-year-old daughter and I played with a pesto of basil mixed with Thai basil, mint, garlic, a few almonds, walnuts, garlic, Parm, good olive oil, salt and pepper. Very, very good. But chop. I learned that from Heidi at 101 Cookbooks - she is a Food Luminary. She is right on target. Try chopping, you will see for yourself.

I've had an amazing sage walnut pesto before and have always meant to try to recreate it at home

I use pecans instead of pine nuts, both for cost, and so I don't have to make a trip to a specialty market. I like my pesto a bit coarse, so I don't process it too long. Arugula & walnut pesto - gotta try it.

The farmer's market near me has a gentleman that sells the most amazing honey pesto. It's the traditional recipe with a dollop of a basil-infused honey and it is soooo good.

For what it's worth, this is the recipe I came up with for the arugula walnut version of pesto I mentioned above: Pretty Perfect Pesto.

I love to use Arugula in my pest! Check out my recipe here for Whole Wheat and Arugula Pesto Pasta http://www.lefork.com/2012/08/05/whole-wheat-arugula-pesto-pasta/

sorrel...got tons of it our coop share early in the spring. And I agree with mitspeck, never put the cheese into a batch to be frozen....not really sure why, just tend to put as little as possibly in the freezer package. So many more possibilities at use

I don't care for blended pesto - it tastes much better if you use a mortar and pestle. Start with the garlic, when that is creamy, start adding oil, basil and pine nuts. When the basil starts to look like rags, which is surprisingly quick, add the grated parmesan, then carry on to your preferred level of chunkiness. There should be plenty of oil still visible; I think this helps it to stay green, as I never have a problem with that. Keep watchers and teaspoons away from operations, or you won't have any left to cook with.

Here's our pesto recipe inspired by our Italian neighbor from Genoa: homemade pesto sauce recipe

I always skip the cheese - that way vegan friends can have some too.