Pesto Sauce
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Homemade pesto sauce is easy to make, and it’s good on just about everything, from pastas to pizzas to salads.
One of my favorite things about summer cooking is stepping out my back door to pick fresh herbs from my potted herb garden. It always amazes me how the tiny seedlings I plant in May grow into more herbs than I can possibly use up in August. Right now, my basil plant is overflowing, which means it’s time to make pesto sauce. Pesto, or pesto alla genovese, is a vibrant, garlicky green sauce that originated in Genoa, Italy. It’s traditionally made with a mortar and pestle, but most modern versions call for using a food processor. Pesto is a versatile sauce that can be used on just about everything, from pastas to sandwiches to salads. It freezes well, too.
What You’ll Need To Make Pesto Sauce
Traditional pesto is made with garlic, nuts, salt, basil leaves, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and extra-virgin olive oil. It’s important to use top-quality ingredients, as the flavors really shine through.
For the cheese, be sure to use authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano from Italy; domestic Parmesan is not the same thing. You can always tell if the cheese is authentic by looking at the rind, which is embossed with the name over and over. If the cheese is already grated, it should be labeled “Parmigiano-Reggiano,” not “Parmesan.”
For the nuts, I use walnuts instead of the more traditional pine nuts for a few reasons. First, I always seem to have walnuts in the house (pine nuts can be very pricey). Second, in recent years an increasing number of people, including me, have fallen prey to a bizarre problem with pine nuts called Pine Mouth Syndrome, a bitter, metallic taste in the mouth that develops a day or two after eating pine nuts. It can last for weeks and make eating or drinking anything very unpleasant. (You can use pecans or almonds, too.)
Step-by-Step Instructions
To begin, combine the walnuts and garlic in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped.
Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper.
Process until finely chopped.
Then, with the food processor running, add the olive oil through the feed tube in a steady stream.
Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Process again until smooth, and that’s your pesto sauce.
How To Store & Freeze Pesto
Use the pesto immediately or store it in a tightly sealed jar or air-tight plastic container, covered with a thin layer of olive oil (this seals out the air and prevents the sauce from oxidizing, which would turn it an ugly brown color). It will keep in the refrigerator for about a week.
Pesto can also be frozen in an airtight container for up to 6 months. I suggest dividing it into the compartments of an ice cube tray and freezing. Once frozen, remove the cubes from the tray and put in a sealable plastic bag or airtight container. You can add the defrosted cubes to summer vegetable soup, pasta salad with pesto, zucchini noodles, pesto pizza, eggs, sandwiches, and baked potatoes.
More Summer Recipes You May Like
- Pizza with Pesto, Fresh Tomatoes & Mozzarella
- Caramelized Onions
- Vegetable Soup with Pesto
- Slow-Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
- Ratatouille
- Green Goddess Dressing
The Best Basic Pesto
Homemade pesto sauce is easy to make, and it’s good on just about everything, from pastas to pizzas to salads.
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup walnuts
- 2 large garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- 2 cups packed fresh basil leaves
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ⅔ cup extra virgin olive oil
- ½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Instructions
- Place the walnuts and garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process until coarsely chopped, about 10 seconds. Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper and process until mixture resembles a paste, about 1 minute. With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil through the feed tube and process until the pesto is thoroughly blended. Add the Parmesan and process a minute more. Use pesto immediately or store in a tightly sealed jar or air-tight plastic container, covered with a thin layer of olive oil (this seals out the air and prevents the pesto from oxidizing, which would turn it an ugly brown color). It will keep in the refrigerator for about a week.
- Freezer-Friendly Instructions: Pesto can be frozen in an airtight container for up to 6 months. You can also divide your prepared pesto into the compartments of an ice cube tray and freeze. Once it’s frozen, remove the pesto cubes from the tray and put in a sealable plastic bag or airtight container. You can add the defrosted pesto cubes to soups, pasta dishes, eggs, sandwiches, and potatoes.
Nutrition Information
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- Serving size: 2 Tbsp.
- Calories: 159
- Fat: 17 g
- Saturated fat: 3 g
- Carbohydrates: 1 g
- Sugar: 0 g
- Fiber: 0 g
- Protein: 3 g
- Sodium: 161 mg
- Cholesterol: 4 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Gluten-Free Adaptable Note
To the best of my knowledge, all of the ingredients used in this recipe are gluten-free or widely available in gluten-free versions. There is hidden gluten in many foods; if you're following a gluten-free diet or cooking for someone with gluten allergies, always read the labels of your ingredients to verify that they are gluten-free.
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SHRIMP PIZZA
Hi Jenn, My wife and I used to get a pre-made crust such as the brand Bob—. Spread it with this and then add cut up cooked shrimp, top with fresh black pepper, and mozzarella mixed with a little fresh grated parmesan. Took about 5 minutes to prep. Now she makes a fabulous crust, which we roll out thin, and roll a dough docker over it. (We’re St. Louis thin crust fans.)We then pre-bake until it starts to turn brown. We then pull it out and add the toppings, put back in the oven until the cheese is light brown around the edges and bubbly in the center. It’s absolutely fabulous!
Hi Jenn! I have a nut allergy and I am wondering if you can just leave them out or if I should substitute something like sunflower or pepitas? Thanks!
Hi Jill, I wouldn’t just leave the nuts out. I haven’t tried this with seeds like pepitas or sunflower so I can’t say for sure how it will turn out – I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful (but I’d love to hear how it is if you try it)!
I made it with a 1:1 sunflower seed swap and it’s DELISH!!! Just fyi 🙂
I made my pesto with no nuts. I heard you can use the walnuts but I didn’t have it either so I used Pecorino Romano cheese. I grated it and used it along with Parmesan cheese.
It was delicious.
Delicious! I’m glad I found this recipe to try for my first time making pesto. It was so good!
Hi Jenn I made this recipe today. Looks and smells amazing. The basil flavour isn’t very strong, is that supposed to be the case? I mainly taste the cheese and walnuts, the basil is very slight. Thanks!
Hi Sam, strange that it doesn’t taste much of basil – you should be tasting all the flavors.
Hello! If I want to use pine nuts, should I use the same quantity as the walnuts?
Yep – hope you enjoy!
Added a couple T of lemon juice and it’s perfect!
Very tasty
Turned out very well I just cut down on salt. Delicious
This is by far the best pesto recipe I have found. Walnut pesto is extremely nostalgic to me but I could not get the proportions right to reproduce my mother’s recipe. Of the many alternatives I have tried, this one is by far the best and most similar to the pesto of my past.
I’m half Italian and this is by far as good as my mama’s and grandpa’s pesto. I don’t have their recipes and was so excited when my husband gave it a thumbs up. The version I was making was good but yours brings back memories and is delicious. I freeze it in ice cube trays so we can have it available at all times.
Hi Jenn
I made this tonight! First time ever making pesto. We are predominantly plant based so I replaced the parmesan with brewed yeast but otherwise followed your recipe exactly! It was out of this world delicious! I actually feel like I could have a dinner party without feeling stressed because this is just so easy but so delicious!
Just made second batch. Best pesto ever!
Worked brilliantly!
Works every time..fresh and beautiful
Delicious! My husband’s favorite pesto. We freeze it in small ice cubes and pull it out as needed. Easy and yummy!
I am an avid gardener and always grow basil but never made pesto. This past summer I decided to try your recipe and was not disappointed. I had pasta ready and we just loved it (never having it before) but now added to our favorites. Your directions and pictures are very, very good and make following your recipe so easy.
Great little sauce with a big flavor…I just whipped up 1/2 a batch with some freezer basil (i was skeptical about that) and little leftover parsley….it’s lovely!
Hi Jenn,
I love your recipes and everything I have made have been great! I wanted to try this one but wanted to see if it would be ok to use toasted walnuts or is it better to not toast them? Thank you, Lisa
If that’s all you have on hand, toasted walnuts will be fine. Enjoy! 🙂
My go-to pesto recipe! Never disappoints. Thank you!
Once upon a chef recipes are perfected, indeed. My pesto has always been meh, but this recipe fixed that. Who knows if it’s the ratios, the walnuts instead of pine nuts, or a combinations of the 2. This pesto proves once again then Jenn is the person to go to for recipes.
The BEST pesto recipe that I’ve ever made! Thank you.
This is an excellent, affordable, pesto. I’ve made better pesto, but it involved spending a whole lot of time with a mortar and pestle. This is the pesto I make and freeze in the summer.
Great pesto. I use walnuts because I have gotten Pine Mouth Syndrome before. It lasted two weeks and was so annoying. I attributed it to the source of the pine nuts. I had bought a big bag at Costco and I’m sure the nuts were from China. I have nibbled on pine nuts since then that were from Italy (I think) and they were fine.
I just made the pesto, using pine nuts and fresh basil, however when I tasted it, it has quite a bitter after taste. I thought maybe I had used too much basil. I re-read your recipe and see that maybe it’s the pine nuts??
I didn’t want to sacrifice on the authenticity the pesto by swapping out the pine nuts for walnuts but i like this bitter taste even less. Will the walnuts affect the taste much?
Hi Vicky, I haven’t heard much mention of pine mouth syndrome lately but I assume it’s still out there. Are you still experiencing a bitter, metallic taste? If so, unfortunately, it may have been the pine nuts that caused that. If not, not really sure why you’re getting a bitter taste from the pesto — did you make any adjustments to the recipe aside from using pine nuts?
This was great. My guests enjoyed it very much – so much that we had it on toast the next morning!
Love this recipe! The only difference is that I toast the walnuts first and add a splash of lemon juice.
Or lemon zest
I made this recipe all summer last year, using sunflower seeds – which are even cheaper than walnuts, and quite tasty. Looking forward to starting the routine again this year with my aggressive basil.
|This is delicious!! This is my first time making it and I used pecans, no walnuts on hand. I also added sundried tomatoes and some of their oil. I’m not a big Pesto fan but I had a bunch of basil and this is what my search brought me to. Amazing!!
Hi Jenn,
First, I must tell you how much I love your blog! I find your stories and recipes so encouraging and reliably delicious I want to try them all. I will now make your pesto with walnuts. Have you tried Marcella Hazan’s blender pesto? That has been my go-to pesto recipe for years. She adds butter to it at the very end. I’ve learned I can reduce the quantity of olive oil she calls for and add less butter. But after making it with and without the butter, including it does provide an added creaminess.
And I also wanted to tell you I have taken your yummy peanut sauce for the Asian slaw (a summer staple for me) and made a new recipe with it: a vegetable rice salad, with the peanut sauce as the dressing. One of the old Vegetarian Epicure cookbooks by Anna Thomas has a veggie/rice salad with an olive oil/parm cheese sauce. Delish but I love the flavors in your Asian slaw sauce! Cooked white jasmine rice with an assortment of chopped raw veggies based on color so it turns into a very colorful salad. Purple onion, orange carrots and/or peppers, red/yellow peppers, green zucchini and yellow summer squash….
Thanks again for your recipes! Sally
Thanks for all your kind words, Sally–so glad you like the blog! And thanks also for sharing how you’ve put the peanut sauce from the Asian slaw to good use. Your take on it sounds delicious! And good to know about the pesto; a little butter never hurt anything! 🙂
Hi Once Upon a chef your Pizza is the best, question do you roast your walnuts for this pesto? I mention this as I got a little bit of metallic taste on the roof of my mouth or could this be something else?
Hi Sue, Did you by chance make the pesto in a blender?
We made this pesto tonight. Since it’s still early spring, my windowsill basil could only offer me 1 cup of leaves. I made up the balance with spinach and it was still great! We appreciated the walnuts instead of pinenuts. We have had trouble sourcing pinenuts without peanut traces (a problem for our house). Thanks for the recipe!
I doubled this recipe and came out not thick enough. Flavor not tested yet, but something in the quantities not right when doubled.
Hi Peg, sorry you had a problem with doubling this. Is there any chance you could have made a measuring error?
I made this and it was so amazingly good. I keep it in a small mason jar in the fridge and its ready anytime for a quick stir into pasta, veggies, a dallop in my power bowl, or just a little extra seasoning in sauces or as a condiment on sandwiches. Makes me want to try versions of pesto with maybe sundried tomatoes instead of basil, or roasted peppers. I love this!
I generally feel like all pesto recipes are generally the same. Pesto is pesto after all. But this recipe is diffeeent. I can’t quite put my finger in it but every time I bring this pesto to a potluck, I get compliments on it. It also freezes well with a little extra oil and doesn’t turn brown/oxidize, so bonus points for that!
I have been meaning to write this review all summer, each time I make this pesto. I had never made pesto before and this recipe is both simple and delicious! It takes minutes to throw together and tastes wonderful on pasta and chicken. Thanks for another keeper!!
I’ve been making Basil Pesto for years, BUT this recipe makes the very BEST Pesto. I love it on my breakfast sandwich of English muffin, pesto, scrambled egg and roasted bell pepper.
This recipe is how I discovered once upon a chef! It’s my go to pesto recipe. I like the tip about freezing the pesto without adding the cheese. I keep half in the refrigerator and half in the freezer and it never turns brown.
Made this last night to throw on some pasta (I did farfalle with tomatoes and chicken). My husband told me it’s the best thing I’ve ever made. So easy and delicious!
PERFECT!! The ONLY thing I changed was the times it took to process….was much quicker than stated. Used my fresh basil from the garden and can’t get over how delicious this is. I even finger swiped the food processor bowl 😀 THANKYOU
The bitterness some people have experienced is the garlic. I’ve made this with sharp garlic and milder garlic. My first time screamed “bitter,” but I knew at once what happened. I bought fresher garlic.
Delicious. I add just a dash of lemon for some freshness.
I had extra basil from another recipe so gave this a try. I put it on chicken breasts and baked them-so good the walnuts worked very well. I stole an idea from your shrimp and feta recipe and added cherry tomatoes for the last 20 minutes and it worked quite well. We enjoyed the chicken leftovers on salad!
I loved this recipe, so easy and so delicious…. I have loads of basic and needed a good pesto recipe. I make it every week until my basil freezes.. ): I’m going to make your Pesto Shrimp tonight, will let you know later about it.
Loved this I used pecans instead of walnuts. It was delicious. Just another option if Walnuts are too bitter for you. I’m glad I found your sites. It’s beautiful and the other recipes look amazing. Hope to try another one soon.
In regards to the metallic taste in your mouth after eating pine nuts from china: if they are toasted first there should not be that taste. A friend of mine is a specialty food sales rep for a spice and nut company and that is what she told me. I find it does work.
I bought a nice Walnut Olive Oil at a specialty store and have been looking for a recipe to use it in. I’d probably roast the walnuts first to give them a little more nuttiness.
What do y’all think about using that oil? Maybe I could put the parmesan cheeese in before the oil and then just make up a tiny bit with the special oil….check taste before adding to the entire batch.
I think that sounds like a good way to go, Jeanne. I’d love to hear how it turns out!
This is my go to spot for recipes, I’ve always been so pleased with how everything turned out until now. I know it’s not the recipe but rather my ingredients, however, this was inedibly bitter, went right in the garbage. Not sure what caused the bitterness? I’d like to try again, perhaps someone could shed light on what could have caused the bitterness and if there is any ingredient that could fix it in case it happens again?
Sorry to hear you had a problem with this Julie! It definitely should not taste bitter– Any chance the nuts could have been spoiled or burnt? Also, you used walnuts (and not pine nuts)?
Hi Jen! No, I used brand new walnuts that tasted good. I’ll try again. Thank you for responding, so kind of you. I looove your site and recipes and I know this one is no exception. I am so looking forward to your cookbook next spring. Happy 4th!
Hi there, Jenn’s pesto recipe is my go to. I have made it a few times without a problem, however I ran into an issue with the bitterness the last time I made it. My issue was the olive oil, as I found. I learned that by adding 1/4 cup of water or less, just enough to make a paste, while the ingredients (NOT the olive oil) are in the food processor stage. Once you get the ingredients to a paste like consistency, put the pesto in a bowl and mix in by hand the olive oil! This worked for me, I hope it solves the problem for you.
Thank you! Appreciate it.
Some olive oils are bitter. I would taste everything before you put it in, just in case.
hi Jenn, Love pesto and excited to try your recipe. Question for you – have you tried pistachios? I read this is the sicilian version. Debating them or walnuts and curious if you’ve tried both. Thanks!
Hi Janet, I’ve used both walnuts and pistachios and both are delicious; you can’t really go wrong!
I’m planning to make this tonight! I’m curious if you use raw walnuts or if you toast them first? Does it make a difference? Thanks!
El, I usually just throw them in raw, but they would be delicious toasted!
Would you make any adjustments when omitting the cheese, to boost flavor? I need the pesto to be both gluten and dairy free. Pls cfm, thanks!
Hi Kate, while I’ve never used it, I know a lot of people use nutritional yeast in place of cheese in a variety of recipes, so you may want to try that. If not, you may want to add a bit more salt to the pesto as the cheese adds a nice salty flavor.
If you were making pesto pasta, would you just pour the room temperature pesto over the hot pasta, or would you heat up the pesto?
No need to heat it up, Stacey – I’d pour it over the hot pasta in a pan (with a little bit of the pasta cooking water) and cook a few minutes to blend the flavors.
I made it last night and your suggestion worked perfectly!! Thank you so much for the tip. It was delicious!