How to Make: Homemade Pesto
Pesto is a unique combination in that:
- It’s one of the most popular sauces ever,
- It’s extremely easy to make,
- The difference between homemade and store-bought pesto is massive,
- In spite of all this, it’s surprisingly rarely made at home.
Seriously, once you try homemade pesto once, you’ll never want to go back to that flimsy supermarket pesto again. In fact, I would probably say it’s the food with the biggest difference between store-bought and homemade.
Pesto fits with pretty much any type of pasta, but also with most types of fish, and it works perfectly with mozzarella as well as soups. It works so well with pretty much anything that comes out of Italy.
Pesto is also possibly the easiest dish to make short of a nutella sandwich. It’s literally so easy to make: the only step is to throw all of our ingredients into a blender and add some oil. The work-to-good-food ratio is off the charts!
Ingredients (2 servings):
- A handful of basil leaves
- 2-3 cloves of garlic (depending on how much you like garlic)
- A handful of pine nuts
- Pecorino and parmesan cheese, grated
- Olive oil
- Lay out all your ingredients.
- Throw your galic, pine nuts and basil in a blender, and blend together.
- Once the garlic, basil and pine nuts are blended into a paste, put your grated cheese into the mix and keep mixing. At this point, I don’t have any real science behind how much should cheese go in, but I’ve found that there has never been a time where I’ve added too much cheese into my pesto (I don’t even know if it’s possible to). Try tasting it at various points; if it doesn’t taste bitter and starts tasting like pesto, then you’re golden.
Then, add some olive oil and mix until the pesto has a smooth texture. Keep adding oil until you reach your desired consistency.
Enjoy!