Top 10 Ways To Use Up Pesto
Student staple, pastas best friend and arguably one of the greatest Italian exports, pesto is now a ubiquitous ingredient in everyday home cooking. Its heady combination of basil, pine nuts, olive oil and garlic means only teaspoons are required to add real punch to a dish, so a jar tends to stick around for a while. If yours is about to turn, use it up with one of our recipe ideas.
How To Store Basil
There are a number of great ways to keep basil fresh until youre ready to use it. If you think youll use it within a day or two, keep the basil in a jar of water on your countertop. The way youd keep a bouquet of flowers. If you think it will be a few days beyond that, treat the basil like you would salad greens. Give the basil a gentle wash, then wrap the leaves in a clean kitchen towel or paper towels, place this in a baggie, and refrigerate until ready to use.
What Is Pesto Sauce
This may sound like a stupid questionof course we know what pesto sauce is. It’s that green, herbal stuff, with nuts and basil and olive oil. But that’s not quite right.
Pesto is a more generic Italian term that describes a wide variety of puréed sauces, traditionally made using a mortar and pestle. The most famous, and the one we’re talking about here, is pesto alla genovese, from the Ligurian city of Genoa and its environs. While people get creative with it today, using different herbs and nuts and who knows what else, traditional pesto alla genovese contains only these ingredients: basil, olive oil, nuts , cheese, and salt. That’s it.
There are other pesto sauces worth knowing about, though, including Sicilys blushing-red pesto alla trapanese, which is rich with tomatoes southern France’s pistou and many, many more.
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How Much Pesto For Pasta
The ratio of pesto to the pasta will depend on your taste preferences. Usually, 2-3 tablespoons of pesto sauce are sufficient for a single serving of pasta of about 75g uncooked weight .
You may also wish to thin the pesto sauce with 2-3 tablespoons of starchy pasta water or add a drizzle of olive oil to add moisture and make the pesto go a little further.
What Youll Need To Make Pesto Sauce
Traditional pesto is made with garlic, nuts, salt, basil leaves, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and extra-virgin olive oil. Its important to use top-quality ingredients, as the flavors really shine through.
For the cheese, be sure to use authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano from Italy domestic Parmesan is not the same thing. You can always tell if the cheese is authentic by looking at the rind, which is embossed with the name over and over. If the cheese is already grated, it should be labeled Parmigiano-Reggiano, not Parmesan.
For the nuts, I use walnuts instead of the more traditional pine nuts for a few reasons. First, I always seem to have walnuts in the house . Second, in recent years an increasing number of people, including me, have fallen prey to a bizarre problem with pine nuts called Pine Mouth Syndrome, a bitter, metallic taste in the mouth that develops a day or two after eating pine nuts. It can last for weeks and make eating or drinking anything very unpleasant.
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How To Use Mint Pesto
That versatility I just mentioned? Here are a few ideas!
- Smear it on a baguette with goat cheese for a sandwich.
- Swirl it into yogurt for a tasty dipping sauce for vegetables.
- Place a slice of feta on a cracker and dollop a little mint pesto on top.
- Mix mint pesto and feta into ground lamb for a tasty lamb burger.
- Toss it with warm small red or b-sized potatoes.
- Spread some over broiled or grilled fish.
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- While pasta cooks, combine roasted red pepper, sun-dried tomatoes, basil, green olives, pine nuts, Parmesan, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper in a food processor. Blend until smooth while gradually streaming in olive oil.
- Drain pasta and return to pot. Add pesto and 1/2 cup reserved pasta water stir continuously until pesto begins clinging to noodles. Add more pasta water as needed to achieve desired consistency.
- Garnish pasta with additional Parmesan cheese and basil, and serve with sauteed veggies or protein of choice, if desired.
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How To Store & Freeze Pesto
Use the pesto immediately or store it in a tightly sealed jar or air-tight plastic container, covered with a thin layer of olive oil . It will keep in the refrigerator for about a week.
Pesto can also be frozen in an airtight container for up to 6 months. I suggest dividing it into the compartments of an ice cube tray and freezing. Once frozen, remove the cubes from the tray and put in a sealable plastic bag or airtight container. You can add the defrosted cubes to soups, pasta or zoodle dishes, pizza, eggs, sandwiches, and potatoes.
Bright Green Basil Pesto That Won’t Fade
One of the frustrating things we run into is that pesto quickly oxidizes, turning from it’s beautiful bright green color into something more on the brownish side. I have two small tips that I use in my video below, and they have made all the difference:
- Blanch the fresh basil. This step takes just a few seconds. You place the basil in a boiling pot of water for 5 to 10 seconds max, then transfer it quickly to an ice bath to stop cooking. And before using it, make sure you wring out all the water. Blanching is meant to kill off the decomposing enzymes that are responsible for turning the leaves brown. Fine Cooking also claims that this trick helps create a better emulsion.
- Use a little citrus. Juice of ½ lemon adds loads of brightness to your homemade basil pesto. I think it enhances the flavor and also aids in keeping that bright green color.
Now, let’s get to the question of the day: how do you make it?
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What Is Pesto Sauce Made Of
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 the following:
- Basil: Traditionally, Genovese basil is used to make pesto. It is sweet with large, flat leaves, but any sweet basil will do.
- Pine nuts: These buttery, ivory-colored seeds from certain types of pine trees are creamy and sweet. They are toasted for this recipe but you can leave them raw too.
- Parmesan: This dry, aged cheese provides a salty base flavor for the pesto.
- Garlic: The amount of garlic is up to you, but I prefer 1 to 2 cloves per 6 cups of packed basil leaves for just a hint of spice.
- Olive oil: This is pretty essential to pesto and will impact the flavor of your sauce considerably. Purchase extra-virgin olive oil with a fruity, peppery flavor best used for salad dressings, dips, and uncooked sauces like pesto!
Its a classic sauce, no contest.
But you can switch out the basil for another handy herb or leafy green, replace the pine nuts with a different favorite nut, or swap the Parmesan 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!
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What Does Pesto Sauce Taste Like
Most pesto sauces are made from a blend of basil, Parmesan cheese, pine nuts, and olive oil. These ingredients give it a pleasantly grassy and garlicky taste subject to the quality of olive oil used. Should you want to suppress the garlic taste in the sauce, just heat it or serve it along with other dishes like veggies, meat, pasta, or even your favorite pie- the pizza.
However, with so many variations of pesto sauce, its difficult to give a definitive answer as to what all pesto sauces taste like. For example, some pesto sauces include parsley, mint, or even cilantro to provide it with a slightly different flavor profile.
We shall look into the main types of Pesto and their respective taste profiles.
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What Is The Best Pasta For Pesto
You can use any variety of pasta you choose. Any shape goes! You can use egg-based garganelli, gluten-free fettuccini, dried wheat penne, or my new favorite discovery, chickpea pasta!
Generally, the pasta shapes that work the best are ones with twists and grooves, such as fusilli, or long strand-like pasta, such as spaghetti or linguine, as these grooves and curves hold the sauce making the oils and herbs stick to the pasta.
How To Make Pesto Pasta
Enjoy your fresh or thawed pesto by tossing it directly with freshly cooked and drained pasta. Do not cook the pesto, but rather allow the heat of the pasta to bring out the delicate aromas of basil, garlic and Parmesan.
Here, a perfectly simple recipe for pesto pasta. Change up the shape with whatever your heart desires.
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Chop By Hand Or Blender
Per the above, this pesto celebrates hand-chopping. Correspondingly, if you’re serious about making good pesto using the hand-chop technique you’ll need a sharp mezzaluna, or a good knife. The sharpness of your blade absolutely matters because you don’t want to bruise or tear your basil. Whatever you use to chop, make sure it has a sharp blade or the basil will turn dark. Chopping the ingredients will take twenty minutes or so. Once you chop your ingredients, you’ll form them into a cake, pictured above. You add olive oil to this cake, and it’s magic – below.
Creative Ways To Use Pesto:
- How do I prevent my pesto from turning brown?
- I add the juice of a lemon to my pesto and Ive never had it turn brown, so be sure to use fresh lemon juice. Some like to top their pesto with a layer of olive oil before storing. The idea is that the oil protects the surface from oxygen which can oxidize and discolor the pesto. Sometimes the surface of pesto can turn dark, but you can just stir it in before serving.
- Why does my pesto taste bitter?
- both basil and olive oil have bitter elements to their flavor so, to some degree, pesto will have a slight bitter edge, its one of the things I love about it. If yours is excessively bitter it could be your olive oil. Extra virgin olive oil tends to be more bitter, so use a milder option like pure or light olive oil for your pesto. Walnuts are also bitter, so dont use them, opt for traditional pine nuts. If your pesto turns out too bitter for you, stir in a small amount of sugar to balance it out.
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Ingredients For Basil Pesto
Most of the ingredients needed for this pesto recipe are things you probably already have on hand. If you dont have basil growing in your garden, its best to buy it fresh the day you are making the sauce.
- Basil use fresh basil leaves. The common basil leaves for pesto are large leaf basil, sweet basil, or genovese basil
- Parmesan cheese shredded
- Extra virgin olive oil use the best quality oil you can source
- Pine nuts these are typical for pesto, but we have substituted with walnuts with great results
- Garlic cloves we use 2 large cloves
- Lemon juice use freshly squeezed juice from 1 large or 2 smaller lemons. Do not use lemon juice concentrate.
- Salt & Pepper can be added to taste
Choose The Best Pesto
When starting from scratch with basil, ensure the picked leaves are fresh and fragrant. If they seem just green and a little acidic, you wont get a good result, no matter how much you use. Different basil varieties, such as the more pungent Holy Basil, can be used, especially if the sauce is to go with meat or fish.
These days, commercial pestos are being made with almost anything Mediterranean, including sun-dried tomatoes, olives, almonds and many other nuts, lemon and orange zest, and with such different herbs as coriander, parsley and rosemary.
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What Nuts Go Into Pesto Sauce And Should You Toast Them
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
Most recipes for pesto sauce call for pine nuts, but walnuts are not unheard of. In all the recipes I looked at, the pine nuts were tossed directly into the sauce, but I wondered whether there was any benefit to toasting them first, which would enhance their nutty flavor.
Side by side, though, the two batches I made were nearly indistinguishable from each other: Not one taster could tell the difference. Because I had made them and knew what flavor I was looking for, I could faintly detect the roasted-nut flavor in the lingering aftertaste of the sauce, and I honestly didn’t think it did the sauce any favorsit detracted from the sweet roundness that makes a good pesto taste good. But if they werent looking for it, I’m not sure most people would even notice.
The verdict: Toasting is not worth it.
Is Food Processor Pesto Bitter
Some people insist that food processor pesto is bitter. To be honest, Ive never had that issue.
It is said that if you do end up with a bitter pesto that was made in the food processor, it was likely because you over processed the olive oil. This is, of course, only hearsay on my part, as Ive personally never noticed the issue. I use an immersion blender with olive oil when I make my homemade aioli too, but havent had the problem with either recipe. Neither recipe calls for hours of blending, though. I think the key here is not to over-process the pesto. You want it to have a bit of texture anyway. To be on the safe side, you can add the oil as needed, adding the most at the end of the recipe making process.
The main difference between pesto made in the food processor from pesto made in the mortar and pestle is really the texture. Traditional pesto has been pounded and ground rather than shredded by blades. Because of the difference in methodology, the basil leaves have a different texture in the sauce.
Pesto made in the mortar and pestle coats the pasta better and looks prettier.
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Defrosting The Pesto Sauce
Because pesto sauce is typically a raw sauce, I dont like to cook my sauce to defrost it. There are a couple of ways to get around this.
If youre a better planner that I am, the ideal thing to do is to defrost the sauce in the fridge for several hours before you need it. If you keep it covered, it shouldnt brown during that time, and if it does brown, it should only be a thin layer on the outside which, when mixed in with the rest, wont be noticed as the sauce will be green when combined.
As I tend to forget, I usually take out several cubes , right when Im starting to make dinner. I place the pesto cubes in a bowl right next to a pot of boiling pasta or cooking chicken. That helps them thaw more quickly. As they begin to melt, I cut the cubes into smaller pieces to help them defrost more quickly.
In the end, if there are a few tiny pieces of frozen pesto left, I just throw them in with the hot, strained pasta, or in with some hot, cooked chicken pieces, to finish defrosting them.
Other Ways To Use Pesto From A Jar
You can use this herby, garlic-y puréed sauce to perk up just about anything.
- Use it on a pizza base. Substitute tomato marinara sauce for green or red pesto and add your toppings as usual.
- Add in salad dressings.
- Toast topper. Add a dollop on top of your egg or mushrooms on toast for a hit of strong flavor.
- Perk up your meat. Pesto packs a punch of flavor so you can add it to beef stew, roast beef, or chicken when the other flavors in the dish are lacking.
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