Pesto sauce original recipe. Pesto sauce: how to make the famous Italian sauce at home

Pesto sauce - the recipe for aromatic Pesto sauce at home is very simple. To make it delicious, it is best to use only fresh green basil leaves, the highest quality olive oil and hard Parmesan cheese, which Italians like to call Parmigiano Reggiano.

Pesto is one of the most famous sauces that goes well with many dishes. Its main ingredients are basil, garlic, olive oil and pine nuts, but adding a couple of additional ingredients can create a unique taste.

The classic sauce is green, but there is also a red sauce, to which sun-dried tomatoes are added. The sauce is the highlight of any dish. It will give everyday food a unique taste, color and aroma, easily turning it into a culinary masterpiece. The famous Pesto has precisely these properties.

National sauce of Italy - Pesto

This is a classic of Italian cuisine that every housewife has heard of. To pamper your loved ones, you can buy a ready-made supplement. But it won’t be able to compete with the sauce prepared just before eating.

The sauce got its name from the words “to crush”, “to trample”. This sauce is served everywhere in Italian restaurants and cafes; it goes well with fish and meat dishes, side dishes and even desserts. The interesting green color looks good on a plate; it is spread on bread toast and added to pizza. For this reason, many people are interested in cooking technology.

It seems that even the name of the world famous sauce smells of the Mediterranean. Australians add pumpkin seeds to it. The Germans do not spare wild garlic. But the most delicious and aromatic was and remains the green sauce made by the Italians.

The national sauce of Italy is not just delicious. It's also very useful. Provided that you prepare liquid seasoning from homemade products and are obviously confident in their quality. The classic recipe is over two centuries old. It is prepared by grinding the prepared ingredients in a marble or glass mortar with a wooden pestle.

Pesto sauce classic recipe

Ingredients:

  • Green basil - a bunch (40 g);
  • Olive oil - 50 ml;
  • Pine nuts - 30 g;
  • Garlic - 3 cloves.

Cooking method:

  1. To give pine nuts a more pronounced taste and rich aroma, fry them in a dry frying pan over moderate heat. There is no need to bring the nuts to darkening - it only takes 2-3 minutes of frying, during which the nut kernels must be constantly stirred;
  2. We wash the basil with cold water and dry it, then tear off all the green leaves - the stems will not be useful to us. You can prepare the sauce in two ways - in a blender and a marble mortar. The first option is faster - all the ingredients are placed in a blender bowl and simply crushed until smooth. However, the second method is considered more “correct”, classical. Therefore, if you have time, we advise you to give preference to it;
  3. Place clean and dry basil leaves in a mortar and knead in a circular motion into a green “mush.” Add the toasted and now cooled nuts;
  4. Grate cheese at room temperature into fine shavings and place in a mortar. Next, squeeze out the peeled garlic cloves;
  5. We continue to grind the mass into the most homogeneous paste. Gradually add olive oil. Do not forget that pesto is just a sauce, and not a liquid soup or thick porridge, so we vary the dosage of oil taking into account the resulting consistency. Take a sample and add salt if necessary;
  6. We serve the classic sauce with boiled pasta, pizza, or simply spread it on slices of fresh bread. Bon appetit!
  • Tip 1. If the recipe uses another hard cheese instead of Parmesan, then the Pesto can be slightly salted to taste. If you use Parmesan, there is no need to add salt, as Parmesan is salty enough;
  • Tip 2. Instead of a blender, Pesto sauce can be prepared in a mortar by grinding the ingredients with a pestle.

Today, the sauce can be prepared in a blender or whipped with a mixer, which helps to achieve a uniform, dense consistency. There are a lot of options, so you can safely experiment with its composition - replace pine nuts with walnuts, hazelnuts or peanuts, basil with arugula, dill or mint.

One thing remains indispensable - high-quality olive oil. Hard sheep cheese is replaced with Parmesan, Reggiano, and the mixture is seasoned with parsley, dried tomatoes or hot pepper. You can add a little coriander or replace the roasted nuts with roasted ones.

In other countries, there are improvisations - the French make the sauce without nuts, the Austrians replace them with pumpkin seeds, and the Germans use wild garlic instead of basil. It is impossible to imagine minestrone soup without pesto in vegetable oil, and another option for using the sauce would be to mix it with cream or sour cream and coat chicken carcasses for subsequent baking.

Creamy Pesto Sauce - step by step recipe

Ingredients:

  • Fresh basil - a bunch (30 g);
  • Pine nuts - 30 g;
  • Olive oil - 70 ml;
  • Butter - 30 g;
  • Heavy cream - 100 ml;
  • Parmesan cheese (or any other hard cheese) - 50 g;
  • Garlic - 2 cloves;
  • Ground black pepper - to taste;
  • Salt - to taste;

Cooking method:

  1. Wash the basil and let it dry. Cut the garlic into slices, chop the nuts, grate the cheese. Place the ingredients in a blender bowl and blend until blended;
  2. Add salt to your taste, add ground pepper (chili, if desired). Add softened butter and mix again. Combine olives with cream and butter until smooth;
  3. The sauce is best served warm. But fans prefer to cool it in advance and then combine it with pasta or mushroom dishes. Bon appetit!

The finished sauce should be transferred to a jar and poured with olive oil: this will preserve its color and extend its service life. Store the sauce in the refrigerator. In Italy, mint is often added to the sauce. Sometimes coriander seeds or leaves (cilantro), olives, lemon zest and even mushrooms are added.

As you can imagine, there are many sauces with similar preparation methods and overlapping ingredients. The most striking example is the Provençal version of pesto called pistou or pistou. In addition to basil, the French sauce contains parsley, garlic, olive oil and several types of cheese.

Instead of pine nuts, grated almonds are sometimes added to pistou, but more often the sauce is prepared without nuts at all. Typically, French pistou is used as a seasoning for summer soup. There is no strict recipe for a special soup for pistou; the main condition is fresh summer vegetables: green beans, tomatoes, zucchini, new potatoes.

Pistou sauce is added to the finished soup when serving or served separately so that everyone can add it to the soup to taste. In Italy they also eat soup with pesto and call it minestrone al pesto. In the USA, sun-dried tomatoes and hot peppers are added to the sauce.

Pesto sauce with tomatoes - homemade recipe

Ingredients:

  • Fresh tomatoes - 250 g;
  • Basil - a bunch of 40 g;
  • Parmesan cheese (or any other hard cheese) - 50 g;
  • Pine nuts - 30 g;
  • Ricotta cheese - 80 g;
  • Olive oil - 40 ml;
  • Garlic - 2 cloves;
  • Ground black pepper - to taste.

Cooking method:

  1. It doesn’t take much time to prepare a fragrant sauce with a unique taste. In addition, the product will be quite low in calories. In 100 g of the composition there will be only 145 Kcal;
  2. Wash the tomatoes thoroughly. Next, chop them into small slices and place them in a hot, dry frying pan. Dry the vegetables a little, getting rid of excess moisture. At the same time, grate the cheeses on a fine grater. Wash the basil, peel the garlic;
  3. Place all ingredients in the recipe into a food processor. Turn on the household appliance and wait until the products turn into a paste-like consistency. The finished sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for 2 days. Bon appetit!

In many countries, walnuts are added instead of pine nuts. This is especially true in Latin and North America, the Caucasus, and Russia. A similar cooking principle is used in the Georgian sauces bazhe and satsivi, and the ingredients for adjika are ground in a mortar in a similar way.

A legitimate question arises: why still use outdated mortars when there are so many electrical appliances? Each dish has its own cooking technique, and it would be good to adhere to it if you need to get a predictably correct result.

Almost all ancient sauces, which were traditionally prepared by grinding ingredients in stone or wooden mortars, cannot be replicated using modern kitchen appliances such as blenders. The blender quickly grinds the tender leaves, which stick to the walls, and as a result, instead of homogeneity, a large contrast is obtained between scraps of uncrushed parts and a homogeneous pulp.

Add to this the painful cleaning of knives from wound plant tissues and the inevitable oxidation and darkening of the sauce due to contact with metal. It’s even faster to cook in a mortar than in a blender, while the color remains rich green, the cooking process is conscious, it’s easy to control and adjust the composition during the process.

What to serve with classic Italian sauce

The most interesting thing is what to serve the sauce with. Adherents of Italian cuisine recommend the sauce exclusively for pasta. In fact, in Italy pesto is only served with certain types of pasta. It is used in soups and salads made with fresh vegetables and herbs.

The sauce goes especially well with rocket salad and tomatoes. There are many recipes for pesto pizza. In this case, the sauce is used as a base sauce, which is used to brush the dough before placing the ingredients. The sauce keeps well in the refrigerator.

Select a transparent container, sterilize it and transfer the excess into a cooled jar. It is unlikely that it will stay in the refrigerator for a long time, but still do not store it for too long and check for mold if the pesto still stagnates.

Spaghetti with Pesto sauce: classic recipe

Pesto loves experiments. Try this sauce with rice, rice noodles, boiled potatoes, add to vegetable salads, and use to flavor soups and other sauces. The sauce goes well with the meat. You can serve it with chicken or duck. The sauce can be added to an omelette or quiche, to a closed vegetable or meat pie, to homemade bread or pies. Practice moderation and trust your taste.

What do you eat Pesto sauce with and what dishes is it served with?

Before preparing the sauce, you need to decide what you will eat it with, because it must only be fresh. When the healing composition accidentally fell on bread, it soon became a sauce famous throughout Italy, and then throughout the culinary world.

Residents of Genoa believe that their region is the birthplace of the sauce; championships in its preparation are even held here. The easiest way to use this sauce is with pasta. Spoon the sauce into freshly cooked pasta and toss, sprinkle some grated Parmesan on top and you've got your traditional pasta sauce. But pasta is not the only thing pesto sauce is eaten with.

Pasta (spaghetti) with Pesto - prepare pasta with sauce

How to make pasta with pesto sauce is described in this recipe. He will teach novice cooks how to prepare delicious, hearty pasta with the true spirit of Italy. This will be facilitated by the use of classic pesto with pine nuts, high-quality olive oil and the right spaghetti made from durum wheat flour. It is better to cook the pasta until al dente to experience the original taste.

Ingredients:

  • Water 1.5 l.;
  • Spaghetti - 600 g;
  • Pine nuts - 40 g;
  • Basil - 2 bunches;
  • Parmesan cheese - 80 g;
  • Olive oil - 100 ml;
  • Parsley - a bunch;
  • Garlic - 4 cloves;
  • Salt - to taste.

Cooking method:

  1. Boil water, add salt, add spaghetti;
  2. After boiling, cook for 7-10 minutes, drain in a colander, and allow excess moisture to drain;
  3. For the sauce, beat the washed basil and parsley in a blender along with crushed garlic, fried nuts, grated Parmesan, olive oil and a pinch of salt;
  4. Thin with oil until the sauce drips from the spoon;
  5. Place a mound of spaghetti and pour the sauce on top;
  6. Garnish with parsley and basil leaves. Serve the dish hot. Bon appetit!

Homemade pasta with pesto sauce - video recipe

In addition to pasta, Italians season it with meat, fish, and add it to salads and rice dishes. It can be used for pasta dishes, as a seasoning for soups, and spread on toast or sandwiches with sausage or ham.

Pesto goes well with fish, especially salmon, seafood and poultry, for example in the form of a marinade. Classic green pesto flavors vegetable salads. In short, this is one of the most popular and familiar additions to food in this Mediterranean country, and the sauce recipe is one of those few recipes that every Italian housewife can repeat with her eyes closed.

Pesto with fish involves adding sauce during marinating. Then you bake the fish in the oven - the aroma is simply incomparable. Sauce is often used on pizza instead of the usual tomato sauce. Vegetables are also great with pesto sauce.

This sauce is also perfect for salads instead of vegetable oil or mayonnaise, especially those for which the spice will be a piquant addition to the rich taste. Pesto for meat is suitable as an addition to a ready-made dish, as well as for the base of a marinade. Moreover, if you marinate meat in it, then it should be fried no earlier than after 3-4 hours.

In Liguria, they season the sauce with a special pasta dish called trenette. But the sauce can easily add a piquant and multifaceted taste to spaghetti, farfalle or lasagna. It is added to appetizers, such as Caprese (a dish based on tomatoes and mozzarella), and used in making pizza and bruschetta.

  1. Pesto is a great alternative to tomato sauce for pizza. The sauce can be served with oven-baked or grilled vegetables and herbs;
  2. Fish dishes with sauce are especially tasty. Try a fish fillet, such as salmon, wrapped in thinly sliced ​​ham, drizzle with a little olive oil and baked in a high oven. Delicious, especially with a regular vegetable salad;
  3. If you cannot get pine nuts, crush almonds or hazelnuts in a mortar;
  4. To store the sauce, a transparent glass container is sterilized, the sauce is placed in it and stored in the refrigerator.

Classic pesto is prepared using a wooden pestle and a marble mortar. The sauce is most often used on crackers, in soups, with pasta, or spread on bread. It would seem that there is so much in our kitchen, all kinds of devices and mechanisms - food processors, blenders, mixers.

However, to prepare this sauce you will have to take a good old mortar and work like in the old days. Ask - why? For example, to prepare Italian sauce - well, he doesn’t like technological innovations; he prefers to grind the main ingredients using a mortar and pestle. This sauce has its own energy, which can only be created manually.

The Persians are credited with the authorship of pesto sauce; it got its name from the word to trample, crush, grind. This sauce will be served to you in any eatery in Italy, and it will be different everywhere. The original sauce has a green color because it contains the obligatory green basil leaves.

According to legend, sailors took this sauce with them on long voyages, and when they landed on land, the bright smell of basil emanated from them. When adding tomatoes, the color turns red, but the tomatoes must be added not fresh, but always dried.

What sauce ingredients can be replaced?

  • Pine nuts. This refers to Italian pine seeds, which are 3-4 times larger than our pine nuts. You can use regular Siberian pine nuts if you can’t get Italian ones. It is known for certain that pine grows in the Crimea and the Caucasus. Do not substitute walnuts, they may cause bitterness. Some people like their cashews unroasted, experiment;
  • Olive oil. Only better. Try it on your tongue; if it tastes bitter and leaves a “nail in the throat,” as the Italians say, then it’s not suitable for pesto. The oil we need should be aromatic, silky and leave a pleasant sensation on the tongue and throat;
  • Green basil. Purple is not suitable; it can give an unattractive dark color and an overly bright aroma. Basil from the Pra region of Italy has lemony aroma and flavor. It is known in markets as lemon or mint basil. In Italy, sometimes a little mint is added to regular green basil if Pra basil cannot be found;
  • Garlic. It’s difficult to say why garlic from Vessaliko is better than garlic from Ryazan. Most likely, the differences may even emphasize the individuality of Russian pesto;
  • Parmesan. Let it be any of the European copies, but there should not be any Russian, Suluguni and sour cream cheeses in the pesto;
  • Sheep cheese. Even in some places in Italy it is not always used for pesto, so it can be excluded. But if you still find Fiore Sardo cheese, then add about 1/3 of the volume of Parmesan;
  • Sea salt. You need coarse salt. This is the whole idea: it is the salt that grinds the leaves, and the larger it is, the easier and faster it is to prepare the sauce. In addition, sea salt is richer in minerals and should be in every kitchen.

Today pesto is an essential attribute of the Italian diet, both everyday and festive. Whether this is due to basil, which has a reputation as a “royal” plant, or some other reasons, putting the sauce on the newlyweds’ table is considered by Italians to be a good sign for the future family. Prosperity and prosperity await the young. Bon appetit!

Video: Pesto - a classic sauce at home

A long time ago, the Italians came up with this delicious sauce made from fresh basil, olive oil and pine nuts, and since then it has begun its journey around the world. It also reached us quite a long time ago, but if you still haven’t tried real Italian pesto sauce, then it’s time to prepare it and join the ranks of its fans.

Pesto sauce is served primarily with pasta, various pasta dishes, and spaghetti. This is probably the first dish that comes to mind. But it's not limited to pasta. When you try to make pesto sauce at home, you will understand from its taste alone that it is perfect for chicken, fish, and even meat dishes. There are recipes for making pizza with pesto sauce; it can be added to soups and salads. It’s very tasty even to spread this sauce on bread. Imagine fresh bread or crispy toast with aromatic green sauce.

Nowadays, a blender, immersion or with a large bowl, is most often used to prepare Pesto sauce. But some cooks, including professional chefs, use manual methods of grinding ingredients, such as a mortar. Perhaps the mortar will give you a slightly different tasting sauce. Due to the fact that greens, nuts and garlic are not just cut with quickly rotating knives, but as if crushed, they release more juice.

Classic Italian Pesto sauce - a simple recipe

The modern version of Pesto sauce is prepared from a fairly simple set of ingredients. As a result, we will get a very aromatic and fresh sauce from basil leaves, olive oil and pine nuts. Sea salt and pepper are added for taste. This is a basic recipe, which some chefs are beginning to modify by replacing herbs and nuts, as well as adding other products.

You will need:

  • fresh basil leaves - 100 grams;
  • pine nuts - 100 grams;
  • parmesan - 100 grams;
  • olive oil - 50-100 ml;
  • garlic - 2-3 cloves;
  • salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Preparation:

1. Grind the garlic and pine nuts using an immersion or bowl blender. It is necessary to achieve fine crumbs.

2. Wash and dry fresh basil. There is no need for excess water in the sauce. Separate the leaves from the stems and place the leaves in a blender with the nuts and sauce.

3. Grate the Parmesan cheese. You can use small or large ones, since the cheese will be crushed again in a blender. It's best to take the Parmesan in pieces and grate it yourself. But if it doesn’t work out at all, take dry, which is sold in stores. But remember, sometimes it is not made entirely from natural cheese, read the composition.

4. Pour 50 ml of olive oil into the blender. This part will be for primary grinding, and we will need the remaining 50 ml in order to bring the pesto sauce to the desired consistency.

5. Grind all the ingredients of the sauce in a blender until mushy. The nuts should turn out to be a little crumbly, and the basil leaves should be small pieces. If desired, you can grind it to your favorite texture, a little coarser if you like pieces of nuts, or smaller if you want a smooth and very delicate sauce.

6. Transfer the finished sauce into a gravy boat or small cup. You can immediately add it to your dishes. The sauce also keeps well in the refrigerator and can be prepared in advance.

Bon appetit!

Pesto sauce can have very interesting variations. It’s difficult to say how its inventors and lovers of culinary traditions feel about this, but I am in favor of the fact that the dish can be modified to suit your taste. You can also make a delicious sauce from walnuts, although its taste will differ from the version with pine nuts. If you love walnuts or have them on hand, feel free to make pesto sauce with walnuts. It will be delicious!

You will need:

  • fresh basil - 50 grams;
  • walnuts - 50 grams;
  • olive oil - 6 tablespoons;
  • garlic - 3 cloves;
  • Parmesan cheese - 50 grams;
  • lemon juice - 1 teaspoon;
  • salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation:

1. Take fresh Parmesan and grate it very finely. You can use a special one for Parmesan.

2. Place fresh basil leaves in a blender jar or bowl (if you have an immersion blender). It can be either green or purple, depending on your taste. You can make a mixture of different varieties of basil, then you will get a beautiful dark green sauce. Do not use stems for sauce.

3. Peel and lightly fry the walnut kernels until crispy. Add to blender.

4. Add peeled garlic cloves. Grind all products to a thick, grainy mass. To make the process easier, you can add olive oil during the chopping process.

5. Add butter to the sauce and bring it to the desired consistency. Squeeze fresh lemon juice and add to the sauce, stir and taste. Add salt and pepper to taste.

The original pesto sauce with walnuts is ready. It's time to prepare the main dish or make crispy toast.

Ramson is a forest wild plant with beautiful dark green oblong leaves. Slightly hot in taste with a garlicky smell. Some people like to make a salad from it or cook spring cabbage soup, and I suggest making pesto sauce from wild garlic. Add crushed nuts, a little butter, and you don’t even need to add garlic, the grass itself will give it a spicy kick. For lovers of wild garlic, this version of the sauce is very suitable.

You will need:

  • wild garlic leaves without stems - 200 grams;
  • olive oil - 150-200 ml;
  • mixture of nuts - 200 grams;
  • salt to taste.

Preparation:

1. Rinse fresh wild garlic thoroughly and dry. Then separate the stems from the leaves.

2. Place the leaves in a blender bowl and add the nuts there. Add salt to taste and add olive oil.

3. Grind all the contents to a thick, grainy mass.

The wild garlic pesto sauce is ready. It tastes best when eaten fresh, but you can also put it in the refrigerator by sealing it in jars and pouring a spoonful of butter on top, this will allow the sauce to last longer. This sauce is perfect for potatoes or meat.

A tasty, homemade and very budget-friendly version of the sauce. Anyone who has green beds with fresh parsley at their dacha has practically won the lottery. After all, such a delicious sauce requires the freshest herbs. The parsley sauce turns out to be very aromatic and healthy, but it is a slightly darker shade of green, which is easy to explain; basil is still brighter. To make it delicious, add garlic and Parmesan.

You will need:

  • fresh parsley - 1 bunch;
  • garlic - 1-2 cloves;
  • walnuts - 100 grams;
  • parmesan - 50-100 grams;
  • olive oil - 5 tablespoons;
  • salt and black pepper to taste.

Preparation:

1. First, fry the walnuts in a dry frying pan. Wait until they begin to crackle when fried and have a crunchy taste. Don't forget to stir them often.

2. Place clean and dry parsley in a blender. It is best to use only leaves, without hard stems.

3. Cut the Parmesan cheese into small cubes to make it easier to chop it with a blender.

4. Peel the garlic and cut in half.

5. Place everything in a blender bowl or in a bowl if the blender is submersible. Pour in oil, add salt, pepper and grind until you get a thick paste. If it is too thick and does not grind well, add oil.

Pesto sauce gets its name from the word “to crush”, “to trample”. This sauce is served everywhere in Italian restaurants and cafes. Pesto goes well with fish and meat dishes, side dishes and even desserts. The interesting green color looks good on a plate; it is spread on bread toast and added to pizza. For this reason, many people are interested in the technology of making pesto, which we will talk about today.

Classic pesto

  • garlic cloves - 2 pcs.
  • fresh basil - 1 bunch
  • pine nut - 45-50 gr.
  • Parmesan - 50 gr.
  • olive oil - 90 ml.
  • lemon juice - 25 ml.
  1. Start preparing your food. First, peel the garlic cloves and run them through a press. Wash the greens and chop them. Grind the cheese with a grater and combine with garlic. Add basil, immerse ingredients in a mortar.
  2. You can use a blender or food processor if you prefer, but making pesto with a mortar is easier than ever. Add olive oil and continue grinding.
  3. You should get a paste of uniform consistency. Season the contents with salt, pour in lemon juice and cool the sauce in the refrigerator.
  4. Pesto goes well with almost all dishes or garlic croutons. If you cannot consume the entire portion at once, simply freeze the sauce or refrigerate it in a glass jar.

Pesto with arugula

  • Parmesan cheese - 45 gr.
  • fresh arugula - 0.1 kg.
  • olive oil - 0.1 l.
  • garlic clove - 3 pcs.
  • walnut - 45 gr.
  1. Remove the stems from the arugula, rinse under the tap and leave to dry on towels. Chop the leaves finely and fry the walnuts in a frying pan without oil in advance.
  2. Peel the garlic and pass through a crusher. Grind the nuts into crumbs, mix with arugula and other ingredients. Pour in the oil, add grated cheese.
  3. Season with pepper and salt to your taste, then transfer to a mortar (blender, meat grinder, food processor). Achieve homogeneity from the components. Serve with crackers or croutons.

Creamy pesto sauce

  • olive oil - 65 ml.
  • fresh basil - 15-20 gr.
  • pine nuts - 30 gr.
  • Parmesan cheese - 45 gr.
  • butter - 25 gr.
  • garlic cloves - 2 pcs.
  • heavy cream - 110 ml.
  1. Wash the basil and let it dry. Cut the garlic into slices, chop the nuts, grate the cheese. Place the ingredients in a blender bowl and blend until blended.
  2. Add salt to your taste, add ground pepper (chili, if desired). Add softened butter and mix again. Combine olives with cream and butter until smooth.
  3. Pesto sauce is best served at room temperature. But fans prefer to cool it in advance and then combine it with pasta or mushroom dishes.

Pesto with mozzarella cheese

  • Parmesan cheese - 40 gr.
  • Mozzarella cheese - 40 gr.
  • fresh tomato - 90 gr.
  • olive oil - 0.1 l.
  • fresh basil - 50 gr.
  • garlic cloves - 2 pcs.
  1. Wash the tomatoes, free them from inedible parts. Chop into cubes or circles. If the peel is thick, remove it. Grate the Parmesan and finely chop the mozzarella.
  2. Rinse the basil and dry on towels until the moisture disappears. Remove the husks from the garlic and pass through a crusher. Combine all recipe ingredients except tomatoes.
  3. Season the pesto with salt and ground pepper. Then beat well with a blender until smooth. Add tomatoes and serve with your favorite main dishes.

Pesto with vinegar and nuts

  • table vinegar (6%) - 20 ml.
  • hard cheese - 40 gr.
  • soft cheese - 90 gr.
  • Cherry tomatoes - 6 pcs.
  • basil - 20 gr.
  • garlic cloves - 3 pcs.
  • nuts (almonds, cedar or walnuts) - 50 gr.
  • olive oil - 120 ml.
  1. Immerse the soft cheese in a blender bowl, and pass the hard cheese through a grater and mix with the first component. Rinse and dry the basil in advance, and add it to a common bowl.
  2. Pass the garlic through a press, fry the nuts in a dry frying pan and place in a blender bowl. Pour in olive oil, pepper, add salt to your taste.
  3. Combine all ingredients with vinegar. Process until it becomes a paste. Wash the tomatoes, dry them, cut them into 2 parts and combine with pesto. Serve the sauce over pasta with mushrooms or chicken.

  • basil - 55 gr.
  • parmesan - 60 gr.
  • pine nuts - 50 gr.
  • olive oil - 125 ml.
  • garlic - 3 cloves
  1. Rinse the basil bunch thoroughly under running water, shake off and pat dry with a paper towel to remove excess moisture. Peel the garlic and chop into large pieces. Grate the cheese on a fine grater.
  2. Place all available ingredients in a blender bowl and turn the products into a homogeneous mass. If you want to get a more airy composition, beat the homogeneous mass with a mixer. You can use the amount of ingredients to suit your taste.

Pesto with Parmesan

  • fresh tomatoes - 240 gr.
  • pine nuts - 25 gr.
  • basil - 30 gr.
  • ricotta cheese - 75 gr.
  • olive oil - 35 ml.
  • parmesan - 40 gr.
  • freshly ground pepper - 3 gr.
  • garlic - 2 cloves
  1. It doesn’t take much time to prepare a fragrant sauce with a unique taste. In addition, the product will be quite low in calories. 100 grams of the composition will contain only 145 Kcal.
  2. Wash the tomatoes thoroughly. Next, chop them into small slices and place them in a hot, dry frying pan. Dry the vegetables a little, getting rid of excess moisture. At the same time, grate the cheeses on a fine grater. Wash the basil and peel the garlic.
  3. Place all ingredients in the recipe into a food processor. Turn on the household appliance and wait until the products turn into a paste-like consistency. The finished sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for 2 days.

Salad with pesto

  • corn salad - 120 gr.
  • cedar nuts - 65 gr.
  • fruit balsamic vinegar - 45 ml.
  • beets - 3 pcs.
  • goat cheese - 210 gr.
  • basil - 25 gr.
  • parmesan - 60 gr.
  • garlic - 3 cloves
  • olive oil - 130 ml.
  1. Wash the root vegetables and cook until fully cooked. After this, cool the beets and chop them into slices. Place washed basil, half the mass of nuts, olive oil, garlic and grated Parmesan cheese, and salt into a blender bowl.
  2. Place chopped beets on a platter and place goat cheese on the root vegetable. Add salt to taste, sprinkle with balsamic vinegar, sprinkle with remaining pine nuts. Serve the finished sauce in a separate bowl.
  3. It is recommended to serve the salad warm in portions. To obtain a more unique taste, beets can be baked in the oven at a temperature of 190 degrees. Also, celery and lemon juice will not go amiss with the dish.

Spaghetti with pesto

  • filtered water - 1.4 l.
  • parsley - 40 gr.
  • spaghetti - 600 gr.
  • basil - 60 gr.
  • parmesan - 80 gr.
  • garlic - 4 cloves
  • cedar nuts - 45 gr.
  • olive oil - 120 ml.
  1. Place a pot of water on the stove and wait for it to boil. Don't forget to add salt depending on your taste preferences. After the first bubbles appear, place the spaghetti in the container. Boil pasta for 8 minutes.
  2. After boiling, place the spaghetti in a colander and wait until the liquid has completely drained. At the same time, start preparing the sauce. Clean and prepare all components as usual. Place ingredients in food processor.
  3. Get a smooth sauce. If necessary, add olive oil to the mixture. The mass should drain from the spatula. Place the dish on a plate in a heap, pouring sauce on top. Decorate the spaghetti with sprigs of herbs.
  1. When purchasing fresh basil, you should know that only green leaves must be added to the classic sauce recipe.
  2. To prepare a unique sauce in terms of taste and aroma, you need to determine the proportions yourself. You can add various aromatic herbs and nuts to pesto.
  3. It is imperative to use extra virgin olive oil when preparing the sauce. The finished pesto should be stored in a sealed glass container.

Pesto is a true Italian sauce. In this country, it is preferably served with pasta or eaten with crackers or croutons. To immerse yourself in sunny Italy for a moment and delight your guests, prepare pesto using the chosen technology. Feel free to add your favorite ingredients to create a unique recipe.

Video: recipe for Italian pesto sauce

The famous Italian pesto sauce, which is more than two hundred years old, is an indispensable seasoning for many dishes, but is especially tasty with spaghetti, risotto rice and ravioli. The unforgettable Mediterranean color and taste of the sauce is given by the traditional Italian products included in its composition. By the way, the classic one is made exclusively in a marble or porcelain mortar, grinding its ingredients with a wooden pestle. Hence the name of the sauce, which comes from the verb pestare, which in Italian means “to grind”, “to crush”. Modern housewives are trying to devote much less time to preparing dishes, and kitchens are now equipped with many convenient appliances designed to facilitate manual labor, so if desired, a mortar can be replaced with a blender or meat grinder.

The most common sauce recipe consists of green basil, pine nuts, Parmesan, garlic, salt and olive oil. Some of these ingredients may vary. So, in some Italian regions, fresh or hard Parmesan cheese is added to the sauce with soft sheep cheese. There are recipes without using nuts or recipes where almonds are used instead of pine nuts. In addition to the classic ingredients, arugula, spinach, walnuts or peanuts, dill, etc. are added to the sauce. But the most essential and indispensable product is, of course, cold-pressed olive oil, without which real pesto sauce is impossible. What do you eat this sauce with? These are, first of all, traditional Italian dishes - spaghetti, ravioli and risotto. However, pesto sauce is an excellent partner for various vegetable, fish and meat dishes, and it can turn the most ordinary side dish into a self-sufficient, delicious dish.

There are still quite a few recipes where you can use pesto sauce. What do you eat with classic pesto? It is often used for baking fish and meat dishes. For example, they bake cod or salmon by placing the fish in a mold and pouring pesto sauce on top. What else do they eat with? This sauce marinates chicken, pieces of beef or pork very well, which are then baked in the oven. The meat becomes very tender and retains all its juices when cooked. Very tasty meat dishes are obtained if you spread thick pesto sauce on them before grilling. What else do you eat this delicious seasoning with? It is often used in sandwiches and snack cakes as a base for meat or vegetable layers, as well as in pizza with tomatoes and cheese. Finally, traditional warm Italian and seafood dishes also use pesto as a seasoning. It has the widest possible use; even spread on a piece of bread, the sauce gives it a piquant and very original taste.

How to make pesto sauce? The classic one is prepared from basil leaves, pine nuts, which are taken in equal proportions, grated sheep cheese and Parmesan, a clove or two of garlic, salt and olive oil, which is added while mixing all the ingredients of the sauce in such a proportion that it is not too thick and not too runny. All of the listed products are mixed in a mortar or blender until the consistency of thick sour cream.

Add a little sun-dried or fresh tomatoes to the red sauce. All ingredients are also mixed in a blender, vinegar and olive oil are added to the required consistency. The resulting red pesto goes very well with Italian pasta, as well as baked eggplants and meat.

The famous Italian sauce, which is rightfully considered the heritage of this national cuisine, has long crossed the borders of the state and conquered the whole world. Therefore, we will enjoy its taste and prepare a wide variety of dishes, using this magnificent sauce as a seasoning.

One of the most famous sauces, pesto is made from a mixture of two main ingredients: olive oil and green basil. Naturally, the remaining ingredients are selected by each chef according to his preferences, so there are countless options for the sauce. Among the most popular additional ingredients are Parmesan cheese and almonds, garlic and goat cheese, and sun-dried tomatoes. Before preparing the sauce, you need to decide what to use with the pesto sauce, because this sauce should only be fresh.
Pesto sauce has its own characteristics in different countries, but it is very tasty everywhere. The famous rich green sauce made from herbs, olive oil, nuts and cheese goes well with fish and meat, as well as pasta and salads.

Pesto sauce goes very well with various types of Italian pasta, for example, fettuccine and tagliatelle, spaghetti and ravioli with all kinds of filling or without filling. Pesto turns a completely ordinary side dish into a delicious independent dish.

In addition, you can bake fish with sauce; cod and salmon are most often used for this. Chicken or whole chicken, meat chops, and turkey can be marinated and cooked in pesto sauce before using it to make meatloaf. By cooking meat or fish in the oven, marinated in pesto sauce and wrapped in foil, you can safely make this dish the main dish on the holiday table. Pesto coated lamb tastes great when grilled. Dry-cured pork can also be served with pesto sauce.

Vegetables that go well with pesto are eggplants, which are rolled into rolls; you just need to add a little tomatoes to the sauce. Eggplants cut into slices and fried in a frying pan turn out very tasty if they are laid out in several layers, covering each layer with tomato slices and pouring pesto sauce and sprinkling with Parmesan cheese. A multi-layer vegetable pie is baked in the oven and served warm. Even classic Italian appetizer made from mozzarella and tomatoes, cut into slices, without fail dressed with pesto sauce. Our usual potatoes can also be baked with pesto. A delicious treat is made from fried mushrooms and spinach, baked with cheese and pesto sauce.

It is quite justified to use the sauce in the preparation of canapés, sandwiches and sandwich cakes, as well as adding it to pizza, especially combined with tomatoes, ham and cheese. Risotto with spinach, to which pesto sauce has been added, is very tasty; the same can be said about warm salads with seafood and the famous sauce. Even soups are prepared using pesto sauce, most often these are potato, pumpkin, carrot soups with sesame and ginger, as well as the popular creamy avocado soup with pesto sauce.

You must try this famous sauce at least once. You don't have to use a lot of ingredients. Pesto sauce will be beautiful even in its simplest form from basil, olive oil, almonds and favorite spices. This sauce is so versatile that it gives incredible scope for experimentation, so it is very useful in the kitchen of any good housewife.