Primavera Pesto Pasta Salad

Homemade Pesto Recipe

A combination of fresh basil leaves, olive oil, garlic, pine nuts and Parmesan, pesto is summer in a sauce. It’s herby, nutty, garlicky, rich and packs a ton of flavor into just a spoonful.

Store-bought pesto can be great in a pinch or when fresh basil isn’t growing in your garden, but if you have five minutes and a handful of ingredients, homemade pesto is pure basil bliss. 

Plus, you control the quality of the olive oil, the freshness of the basil and—most importantly—the balance of flavors. By the way, some store brands don’t even use olive oil!

A few pesto tips:

Use fresh, fragrant basil. If it looks sad and wilted, your pesto will be sad, too.
Toast your pine nuts for extra flavor. It really does make a difference!
Add the cheese last. Blending Parmesan for too long can make the pesto grainy.
A little squeeze of lemon juice helps preserve the bright green color.
And don’t overblend, or you’ll end up with basil soup instead of a thick, textured sauce.

If you’re ready to whip up your own pesto, here’s my easy, foolproof recipe:

In the bowl of a food processor,
pulse ¼ cup toasted pine nuts (make sure you cool them first)
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 cloves of garlic
¼ tsp sea salt and ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper 
until the nuts and garlic are finely chopped.

Add 2 cups packed fresh basil leaves and pulse again until the leaves are all chopped up.

Get the blades whirling, then drizzle 1/3 cup of olive oil through the feed tube and process until everything is nicely combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

Then add 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan and process again, just briefly, until everything is well mixed. 

Presto! You’ve just made pesto!