Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Food & Drink

Need to Elevate Your Pasta Dishes? Learn How To Make Pesto

By and

Rich, herby, bright, and incredibly flavorful, pesto is one of the world’s most popular sauces. The beautiful green mixture is the perfect accent to so many dishes, from just about every pasta dish imaginable, to steak to seafood. It also shines bright on its own, spread generously on a warm baguette, its gorgeous green color taking center stage even before the first bite. Mix a spoonful into soup for an instant upgrade. Stir a bit into mayonnaise for a deliciously earthy sandwich spread. Substitute your red sauce for a vivacious green the next time you make a pizza. The possibilities are endless, and too often, this wonderfully versatile ingredient gets labeled as nothing more than a pasta sauce. It’s time to rebel.

Pesto was invented in Genoa, Italy, appearing for the first time in the mid-19th century. The lineage of this fragrant green sauce can be traced to an ancient Roman version ­­called moretum, a dip made from herbs, cheese, garlic, and olive oil. The name pesto is Genovese, meaning “to pound” or “to crush.” The Genovese are intensely proud of their invention. For the pesto connoisseur in Genoa, true pesto can only exist in its birthplace, made with the original ingredients of basil, cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano or pecorino sardo), pine nuts, garlic, and olive oil.

Recommended Videos

Because pesto is now global, the sauce has acclimated itself to the flavors of different cultures and countries. Peruvian pesto, introduced to the country by Italian immigrants, is made with spinach and walnuts. In southern France, a version without nuts called pistou is popular. Even in Italy, different versions of pesto exists, such as Sicilian pesto alla trapanese, which includes tomatoes combined with traditional pesto ingredients.

These days, pesto is often made with a food processor. This a great replacement for the modern cook, as the result will still be delicious while also saving time. For a more traditional version, though, try preparing pesto in a mortar and pestle. This process creates a completely different texture and flavor. Blending the sauce produces emulsification, resulting in a smooth sauce. By using a mortar and pestle, the pieces of the individual ingredients will remain separate, allowing the ability to taste the separate flavors rather than a smooth, blended paste. For the best pesto, use only small, young basil leaves.

Pesto Recipe

A long spoon holds fresh pesto above a jar of pesto.
LyubovKardakova / Pixabay

Traditionally, pesto is a mixture of basil leaves, pine nuts, Parmesan, garlic, and olive oil. There is no denying that this version is delicious, and is one of the most popular sauces in the world for good reason. However, as with most sauces, when making your own, feel free to tweak tradition a bit. In our experience, we’ve found that pistachios make for a beautiful substitution to pine nuts, contributing to the gorgeous green color, and rounding out the overall flavor with their milder, sweeter notes. The addition of artichokes provides a sweet and earthy flavor, and a velvety texture to an otherwise rather grainy sauce.

Though our recipe is a slightly less-than-traditional take, you’re welcome to substitute pine nuts for pistachios, and eliminate the artichoke hearts. But we think these changes really amp up the flavor and improve an already incredible sauce.

Yield: Makes about 1 cup

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups fresh basil leaves, stems removed
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1/2 cup pistachios, shelled
  • 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
  • 4 ounces marinated artichoke hearts, roughly chopped
  • Juice from 1/2 lemon
  • 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 tablespoon white wine vinegar
  • Kosher salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper

Method:

  1. In a food processor, combine all ingredients except oil
  2. While food processor is running, slowly drizzle in olive oil until pesto is smooth
  3. That’s it. That’s how easy it actually is.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Hunter Lu
Hunter Lu
Contributor
Hunter Lu is a New York-based food and features writer, editor, and NYU graduate. His fiction has appeared in The Line…
How to make your own hot honey at home (so you can add it to your food and drinks)
The possibilities are endless on how you can use hot honey
Hot honey on meat

The combination of "spicy" and "sweet" holds a lauded position in many international cuisines, with chefs and diners celebrating the way these seemingly contradictory flavors complement each other. From General Tso’s chicken to Mexican chocolate, the popularity of spicy-sweet foods shows no signs of dying down, much to the delight of this writer, a self-proclaimed lover of heat.

In recent years, a condiment that perfectly encapsulates the spicy and sweet appeal has carved out a major niche for itself, and its name is "hot honey." Companies like Mike’s Hot Honey and Bushwich Kitchen (Bees Knees Spicy Honey) successfully sell pre-made versions of this treat, but it’s surprisingly easy to make at home, and we’re here to guide you through the process.   
What is hot honey?

Read more
The classic vodka cocktails you need to know how to make
Here are some simple recipes that require vodka as the star ingredient
Moscow mule cocktail with lime and mint in a copper mug

Vodka may never wear the royal crown when it comes to celebrated spirits. But that's just fine, as the relatively neutral spirit tends to do better as a mixer than a standalone drink. Granted, there are some remarkable top-shelf vodkas out there, but by and large, this spirit wants to jump in the glass with some other ingredients and play around.

Want some more reasons to appreciate vodka? Let's start with price point, as it tends to be one of the most inexpensive spirits out there. Next, let's chat about its versatility. That mild flavor can do well with just about anything (yup, even a good vodka pasta sauce). Lastly, it's a fun drink with lots of history and folklore. This is the stuff of ice bars, caviar chasers, and, in some cases, putting potatoes to work.

Read more
You can make a quick hollandaise in your microwave in under 2 minutes – here’s how
It's time to stop cursing at broken sauces
Eggs Benedict on plate

During my very first break from culinary school, I went home to visit my parents. As one does, I'd decided to show off with all of my fancy new culinary know-how and spent the weekend preparing a royal spread of pastries, breads, desserts, and every meal I could dream up...or had at least had jotted down in one of my notebooks. But on the third or fourth morning, exhausted from croissants and brioche, I decided to make for my my parents eggs benedict, complete with the most silky and buttery of all the sauces - hollandaise. Hollandaise sauce is truly something straight from the gods. Traditionally made from egg yolk and butter, emulsified slowly over low heat and accentuated with a lemony kiss, this velvety sauce is what brunchtime dreams are made of. Traditionally served over a number of dishes, it just doesn't get any more delicious than a classic hollandaise.

Unfortunately, however, this delicious sauce can also be one of the most finicky to make. That morning with my parents, hopeful and full of joy and optimism after spending a few nights in my childhood bedroom, I set to work making a perfect eggs benedict with hollandaise for my sweet parents. I did everything right. The eggs were tempered, the bain marie was perfect, the eggs were poached to perfection. And then, out of nowhere and with no warning, along with my sweet young heart, my hollandaise broke. In a fury of embarrassment, I poured the entire batch down the drain and started again. And again. If memory serves, it was the fourth batch that finally worked, though I'd done absolutely nothing different than in the first three batches. Needless to say, it was a frustrating (and expensive) morning.

Read more