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How to make the richest pesto sauce in the world

Pesto sauce recipe:


The pesto sauce is one of the pasta sauces most famous Italian cuisine. Although the best known is "Genoese pesto sauce", whose ingredients are basil, garlic, pine nuts, cheese, and olive oil , there is also the Sicilian red pesto , made with dried tomatoes, peppers, pecorino cheese and oil , or Trapani pesto , also from Sicily, which in this case brings tomatoes, almonds, basil and garlic...etc.

Anyway, pesto sauce is a recipe that we must know, and that has the advantage that it can be frozen, so it is worth doing a lot when we prepare it, whether it is pasta or pesto, salad or on any meat, the pesto has a peculiar flavor that captivates the palate.

Origin and history of Pesto Sauce:

Actually, although we often refer to it as "pesto", this Italian word means "crush". The origin of the pesto comes from the "Genoese" word "pestare" which means "to crush with mortar". And certainly, the mortar is very related to pesto sauce.

Although the origin of the pesto sauce is in Genoa, it is in the north of Italy, specifically in Liguria where basil was added, since it grows abundantly there. From Genoa the recipe spread throughout Italy, giving rise to the variants of this sauce that we have already mentioned above: the red pesto, pesto Trapani.

In Genoa, however, they take the recipe for pesto sauce very seriously and have created the "Consorzio dil Pesto" through which the original recipe is preserved, and where they recommend making the pesto to the "Genoese" in the traditional way , that is, with mortar and by hand, using small basil leaves for its preparation.

Ingredients of pesto sauce:


  • 3 cups of small basil leaves
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 1/4 cup of pine nuts
  • 1/4 cup of Parmigiano Reggiano grated cheese
  • 1/4 cup of grated Pecorino Romano cheese
  • 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil
  • a pinch of salt

How to make pesto sauce, recipe step by step:


  • To make the pesto sauce in a traditional way, grind the cloves of garlic, pine nuts and fresh basil in a mortar and pestle until a more or less uniform paste is obtained. Add the grated Parmesan cheese, the extra virgin olive oil, and two or three tablespoons of the very hot water where we have boiled the pasta.
  • We continue crushing the pesto sauce in the mortar until we obtain a homogeneous sauce. If you use a food processor you should put them all together, except the oil, and press them little by little until they are chopped. Slowly add the olive oil and mix at low speed. If we beat or bite too much we can heat it too much and "cook" the pesto sauce, which will give us a low-quality sauce.
  • Eat immediately, pouring the pasta over the pesto sauce, or fill a bucket with and freeze for about two hours. Once the cubes are frozen we can remove them and put them in a freezer bag, so we will have them ready when we want to prepare a recipe with pesto.
  • We can thaw the pesto sauce in the fridge, bringing it to room temperature before using it. If it is a little thick you can use a little olive oil or a drop of water to emulsify it.

Pesto tricks to make the perfect recipe:

  1. Crush the ingredients with mortar: We already told you above, the Genoese recommend crushing the ingredients of the pesto sauce by hand in the mortar, and not using electrical appliances. This is because in this way we extract all the flavor of both garlic and basil, preventing the sauce from being "cooked" by the heat generated by a food processor. In case of doing it with some electrical device try to give small touches, crushing the ingredients little by little.
  2. Avoid pesto repeat: If we want to avoid that our pesto sauce repeat and our guests remember us all afternoon we have to remove the garlic from the central part, which is the one that repeats. To do this we split the garlic lengthwise and with the tip of a knife, we ​​extract the heart of the garlic.
  3. Use quality ingredients: For our pesto to be a quality sauce, it is important that our ingredients are as well. Use fresh pine nuts, small basil leaves, and a good quality extra virgin olive oil.
  4. How to serve pesto pasta: It is important to serve the pesto sauce first and put the pasta on top of it. Then each diner will mix their pasta until it is completely integrated. The usual thing is to put two tablespoons of this sauce on each plate because it is a rather fatty sauce because of the amount of oil it carries.

Recipes with pesto sauce:



Pesto has many uses in addition to the typical pasta with pesto sauce. You can use zucchini slices and mix it in a salad for example. It is also great on rice, spread on a slice of bread ... in short, pesto sauce is tremendously popular and has reasons for it.

Here are some suggestions, starting with the best known:

Pasta with pesto


To make the pasta with the pesto, we cook the pasta according to the instructions indicated, leaving it always al dente, for which it is important not to exceed the indicated time. If we decide to make fresh pasta, such as homemade gnocchi, it will be enough with a couple of minutes, because fresh pasta requires less cooking.

Once we have the cooked pasta we pour it over the pesto sauce and stir with the cutlery until it is completely integrated.

Salad with pesto dressing


Any salad will be delicious with a dressing of pesto sauce, but it goes especially well with the Caprese salad, with tomato and mozzarella, or any pasta salad.

Pizza with pesto sauce



Also try to include the pesto sauce once you have baked your homemade pizza, spreading it on top, you will see how it gains in flavor.

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