Everyone’s Favorite — Italian Pesto

It seems that all dishes added with pesto becomes more delightful.

Pesto is the perfect sauce to have at your home. Authentic Italian Pesto made from whole and natural ingredients is so versatile, it is a perfect addition to anything that you are having for lunch, it perks up a simple pasta dish. For dinner, it adds a little magic as a dressing for your salad or even as a dip for your organic chips snack. Make some in advance and you can keep it in the fridge ready at a moment’s notice. Make extra batches when basil is in season and have enough to last you through the winter. Plus you know exactly what your pesto is made of! Not some mystery chemical sauce direct from the supermarket.

Here’s how to make this delicious, all natural Italian Pesto

Tips for Kitchen gear, pine nut toasting and basil choice.

Let’s start with the kitchen gear. You will need to get a good food processor. This’ll be a good investment since you can use this to make your kitchen prep time easier and especially for the grinding and mincing needed for sauces, marinades and the like. A good idea is to continue using a processor even if it has one blunt edge. This is perfect for the “bruising” process of chopping the ingredients that let their entire flavor burst out. If you don’t have a food processor, good old’ mortar and pestle will do.

Next, lightly toast the pine nuts. This will create a creamy taste. When you full toast the nuts you’ll get a nutty flavor and for authentic Italian pesto, you should aspire for the creaminess that lightly toasted nuts give.
For the basil, think of purple basil, if you can get some, it’ll give your sauce a new edge. You can even think about the American version which uses rocket instead of the good old basil. Rocket leaves have a fragrance that pairs well with roasted meat dishes. You can also experiment and make different batches with different herbs to make your pesto more exciting!

Classic Italian Pesto Sauce

You will need:

• Half a clove of garlic
• Himalayan Salt or ‘fleur de sel’
• 3 handfuls of fresh Basil leaves
• 1 handful pine nuts, very lightly toasted
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Ground black pepper
• 1 handful grate parmesan cheese
• Lemon (optional)

• Pound the garlic and the basil leaves with a pinch of salt in either a mortar or pestle or pulse them a bit in your food processor.
• Add the garlic
• Add the pine nuts to this mix and pound them in again.
• Add parmesan with olive oil and stir until you get a creamy-oozy look (add more oil if it’s a bit dry and/or it reaches the consistency that you prefer).
• Add some salt and pepper to taste and add more cheese and stir in some more olive oil until you get the texture that you want.

You can add a little bit of zing by adding in some lemon juice if you prefer. This isn’t really necessary. Taste your pesto and decide if you like it with a twist or not.

Don’t forget to store the Pesto in the freezer!

A single average serving of this dish contains 100 calories. From there you get 0.8 grams of carbohydrates, 0.3 grams of sugar, and 10.0 grams of fat, 2.3 grams of saturates and 3.6 grams of protein. This totals to 5%,0%,0% 14%, 12% 8% of Recommended daily allowance for Adult’s reference intake respectively.