Pasta pesto is my favorite dish from Italian restaurants.
Everytime I have a taste for this dish, I’d rather not pay 16$, lol.
I don’t have a food processor. So making pesto at home is out of the question.
So, this leaves me with the store bought pesto. Once, I tried Di Giorno’s pesto sauce. It was pretty good, but fattening! They use canola oil instead of olive oil!
What brands do you like?
How long does this stuff stay fresh?
It’s better to purchase refrigerated pesto than shelf pesto, right?
Do you all even recommend store bought pesto?
I’m thinking about purchasing this sauce from the Whole foods market. I forgot the brand, but it’s supposed to be home made, and basil is bright green.
There are mini-food processors for around $25. Making pesto is really easy.
Are you sure you want to buy store-bought?
If you are, I’d go with the Whole Foods.
It’s pricey, but the ingredients are trustworthy.
Give consideration to buying something like this for $30. Here in Australia a jar of good pesto costs $4 or $5 dollars and can be made for far less. Gourmet varieties cost up to $15 and are no harder to make.
I make my own but I also occasionally buy jars of the ready made stuff from the supermarket. It’s not quite as nice as the home-made version, but it’s still perfectly OK.
Would you guys mind sharing your pesto recipes? In the past, I’ve used the little seasoning envelope that you mix with your olive oil (the stuff they sell near the gravy packets and chili seasonings). But I love pesto, I have a fresh basil plant on my windowsill, and I’d much rather learn to make my own.
I don’t really use a recipe; I just throw a bunch of basil and some toasted pine nuts, some olive oil, garlic, and a bit of salt in the food processor and blend to a paste. Some people add cheese upfront, but I like to add it directly to the pasta. Pesto freezes quite well; I just dug some out of my freezer that I’d made the summer before last, when I got a good deal on fresh basil at the produce stand, and it tastes fine.
Pesto isn’t the cheapest thing to make - pine nuts are pricey, and fresh basil can be as well, unless you grow it yourself or have a good source, but I can’t stomach the idea of paying so much for a grocery store product that’s inferior to what I can make at home in a few minutes.
You can get one of these for $12 bucks, and they’re really handy for lots of things. It’s what I make my pesto in.
That said, I’ve bought store pesto before, but usually only because they’re out of pine nuts & fresh basil sometimes.
If I were a bit more organized, I’d just buy pine nuts & basil when it’s available and on sale, make up a big batch, and freeze it. Nothing wrong with frozen pesto.
Eva Luna has got my basic recipe down, too. However, instead of pine nuts, I used the less expensive walnuts. Personally, I like them just as much as pine nuts. If I’m feeling really sneaky, I’ll just stock up on pine nuts from take away salad bars.
Generally, I use garden-grown basil, nuts of some sort, extra-virgin olive oil (Frantoia is my standby), and some garlic and salt. If I’m going to be using the pesto relatively soon (within the week), then I’ll add fresh parmesean cheese (read: not from the green can) or something similar and process it.
And I also agree with Eva in that I’ve yet to find a jarred version of pesto that is even remotely as good as the homemade stuff. Nothing comes close. It’s really important to have all the essential oils of basil intact. That’s what makes the dish. Plus a decent olive oil like the aforementioned Frantoia or, if you’re on a budget, Goya (surprisingly) actually makes a very acceptable olive oil at maybe half the price.
Feel free to experiment with any nut you do have a taste for. Like I said, walnuts are fine. You can also use almonds or pistachios. For that matter, it’s not a requirement that you use basil, either. Plenty of great pestos have been made with parsley or sage or other herbs (or some blend thereof). The main thing is leafy green herb + nut + extra virgin olive oil + dry aged cheese.
Walnuts, pecans, pistachios, all good. Trader Joe’s has or had an artichoke heart pesto that was really good and fairly inexpensive, but I haven’t bought it in a while so it could be discontinued.
As far as growing Basil goes, the stuff is practically a weed. Ten square feet of soil and a $1.29 bag of seeds will get you pounds of pesto.
Being cheap, I use roasted, unsalted sunflower seeds rather than pine nuts. You still get a tasty little crunch, but only 1/4 the cost.
When i was chefin’ I made it about one a weel in a LARGE batch. As for use alternate nuts, go for it, your eatin it so whatever your taste and budget preffers. As for alternate Herbs, I used to make a pretty mean Cilantro Pesto using Cilantro, garlic, pecans salt and pepper and a bit of lime so some zing, depending on what i was using it in it may even use some fresh chilies…for the cheese, I find any hard cheese acceptable, each lending its own “flavor profile”; I’m an asiago man myself.
Pesto= Italian, from past participle of pistare, pestare, to pound.
As others have said you can get away with any combination you like. Sundried tomatoes are a great addition and macadamia nuts make a really creamy pesto.
Umm…walnut sage pesto is not that much of an oddity. (The sage is usually cut with some parsley, incidentally). Google it and you’ll see. I admit that parsley and basil are the traditional herbs involved in pesto, as well as pine nuts and walnuts being the tradition nut component. The only odd thing about this pesto is that the parsely is spiked with sage. It’s quite a nice change of pace, and I don’t think it’s at all blasphemy to call it pesto.
Here’s my two cents. I’ve never actually had real pesto - the homemade herbal paste made from fresh herbs and olive oil. I’ve only had the kind sold in jars from the grocery store, and I don’t really like it. It’s like oil + salt. I can only assume that the fresh stuff is A LOT better.
