Episode 016 Fresh Basil Pesto

Intro: Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.

Susie Weinrich: We are going to get right to it today. We have an amazing recipe that you can use in so many different ways. We are talking about basil pesto today.

You’ve probably had basil pesto out at restaurants. If you get a pesto pasta or a pesto pizza, it goes great with chicken, it goes great with pasta. There are so many different ways that you can actually use this sauce. Believe it or not, if you haven’t made it, it is extremely easy to make. It’s made with just a few ingredients. It comes together in about 10 minutes. That really includes your prep, so cracking garlic cloves, and getting all of your ingredients ready. This will be really easy to make. 

Here are the ingredients you’re going to need. Walnuts or pine nuts. Fresh basil, of course. Fresh garlic, extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt, and Parmesan cheese are optional, but I do prefer Parmesan cheese in my pesto.

Also, to make your pesto, you will need some equipment. I like to make mine in a food processor because you can use the little feed tube at the top to drizzle in your extra virgin olive oil. If you don’t have that, you can absolutely just use a really powerful blender, whatever you have in your kitchen.

Tips and Tricks: A couple of tips with some of the ingredients. Number one, your fresh basil. You’re going to need a ton of fresh basil. You need about five cups. So if you’re buying it in the store, I find the best place to get it is actually Trader Joe’s, if you have one nearby. Their packages of basil are nice and full, so you probably only need to buy two of their packages to get close to your five cups, maybe three actually. If you’re buying it at the regular grocery store, you’re going to need a lot of those little packages of basil. So your best bet is to go to Trader Joe’s or to grow your own basil in the summer. It’s a pretty easy plant to grow actually and it is prolific. It grows and grows and grows. If you are into having a green thumb, my recipe post for this basil pesto actually has some tips for growing, harvesting, and regrowing your basil. 

Another ingredient I want to talk about is the extra virgin olive oil. E V O O. Extra virgin olive oil is not the same as just olive oil. It will say it right on the package so you can see what is what. You want to buy the extra virgin olive oil. It has a much stronger, more pronounced flavor than you want in your pesto. So if you don’t have that, go to the store and get extra virgin olive oil. 

Basil Pesto Recipe: All right, let’s get on to making this recipe. So you’re going to grab your food processor with a blade attachment or a blender, and you’re going to add a third a cup of walnuts, or you can use pine nuts and seven garlic cloves. It is very garlicky, but that is what you want. Now if you are very sensitive to garlic, maybe you could cut it back to like four cloves. But if you love that garlic, keep all seven. Then you’re going to go ahead and pulse that walnut and garlic mixture together about 20 to 30 pulses until it’s nicely ground up. Then you’re going to add five cups of basil, four tablespoons of lemon juice, one teaspoon of kosher salt, and then a third a cup of fresh grated Parmesan cheese if you’re choosing to use the Parmesan cheese. Then you’re going to start your food processor. In that feed tube, you will slowly drizzle in one cup of extra virgin olive oil and just keep blending it until it is smooth and all of the pesto comes together.

Now, if you’re using that food processor, you may need to scrape the sides of the bowl down a couple of times just to make sure that everything gets processed together. With your pesto. You can use it right away, or you can store it in the fridge. It should be good for about a week. This is my favorite tip though. Pesto can be frozen beautifully. It will keep for six months in your freezer. What I recommend is actually taking an old-fashioned ice cube tray, spooning about one and a half tablespoon portions into each little cup, and popping it in the freezer. Let all those cubes freeze up and then pop them out and put them in just like a freezer-safe baggie and keep it in the freezer for six months. That way you can use just a little bit at a time. Or when you are ready to use it, it will thaw and cook down a little bit faster than if it was just in one big block.

To use your pesto, it is excellent just tossed with pasta. A little bit goes a long way with pesto. It’s not like a marinara where you want it to soak the noodles. You just want it to lightly coat the pasta. So I also recommend if you’re going to toss it with pasta, save a little bit of your starchy pasta cooking water. It will help kind of thin that pesto out and mix it into the pasta a little bit better. My tip for saving your starchy pasta cooking water is when you get your calendar out and put it in the sink, pop a measuring cup in the calendar, and you won’t forget that water.

Pesto also makes a great dip for grilled chicken or roasted shrimp. You can make a pesto cream sauce by adding a little bit of heavy cream, or you can make a pesto lasagna. I have a great recipe for a pesto lasagna skillet that has a little bit of Italian sausage of pine nuts and pesto. It’s all made in one pan, right on the stovetop.

As always, I will link all of those recipes, the pesto recipe, and any recipe that I have to use that pesto right in the show notes for you. 

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Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier.