Recipe: Homemade Pesto

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Pesto is a convenience food in our house, a jar on hand for when I need a convenient lunch or dinner. But when out to lunch with a friend, I got to try homemade pesto for the first time and it was life changing.  From that moment, I only wanted to make my own and haven’t bought a jar since- it also helps its super easy to make. So, give it a try for yourselves, here is our homemade pesto recipe. 

The recipe below usually lasts a week if kept covered in the fridge (I recommend topping the olive oil levels up after each use as it’ll keep better).

Ingredients:

• Large handful of fresh basil
• 100g pine nuts
• 3 large pinches of fine sea salt
• 100ml of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large garlic clove (more if you like it garlicky)
• 4-5 large teaspoons of Parmesan cheese- experiment to taste, I buy the pre-grated Parmesan and this is what works well for me.

Method:

1. Wash the basil and pat dry with clean kitchen towel. Remove all stalks and keep only the leaves. Dice the leaves using a large, sharp kitchen knife and add to a blender.
2. Add the pine nuts, salt, olive oil and garlic clove (crushed first) to the blender. Blend until fully mixed.
3. Remover the blender lid and push down the ingredients with a spatula, add the Parmesan to taste (usually I add around 4-5 teaspoons) and blend again.
4. Store in a ramekin jar or similar and keep in the fridge.

If you give it a try, let us know what you think of this recipe in the comments below.

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