Pesto

“While I consider ways to mainline this in order to get it into my system faster than through the typical oral avenue, allow me to sing its praises in harmony!We have 4 kinds of basil growing in our garden at the moment; Italian Sweet, Purple Ruffle, Magical Michael and Ararat.It is the latter that I used for this pesto and the first time using this variety at all.This is a dark green and purple variety, very similar to classic sweet basil in flavor, but with vague hints of licorice and clove.In any event, combined with the other ingredients, it made a lovely pesto. I processed all ingredients except the parmesan in my Magic Bullet, then blended in the cheese. I then froze portions in an ice cube tray for individual use. Just pop one or two frozen cubes (in my case, frozen hearts) in the microwave until soft, then mix in with your favorite pasta. Doesn’t get any easier than that! 🙂 For our garlic-loving taste buds, 2 cloves made it VERY garlicky. Thank you for posting, Samuel, it’s delicious!”

“Perfect recipe; exactly what I was expecting. Thank you! I mistakenly used a blender instead of a food processor but it worked fine once I got it going. I also used Himalayan salt for the salt ingredient, which was divine.”

“I used this recipe as my base recipe as it was simple with some great flavours. However i swapped the pine nuts with almonds and i added a little less oil because i wanted more of a thick paste. Thanks for posting this recipe it was great!!!”

“This was very easy to make and delicious!DH likes it so much he eats it on crackers, bread, or whatever we have here!I had to halve the recipe because I bought on basil plant at the store and it only ended up being 1 c of leaves pressed down….I will have to make sure I buy more nex time!”

“Excellent, first time making pesto and what a hit. Followed recipe except used a little less olive oil, came out great.”

“This was so good, I’ve been wanting to make a good pesto sauce for awhile.I made it with recipe #21882 (Chicken Pesto).I will definately keep it and use it in the future for other things.. One of my favs w/pesto is chicken pesto pizza w/feta cheese.. yumm..”

“Easy and good”

“I followed the recipe exactly and it is great!Very simple and tasty!”

“Good basic pesto; I substituted pine nuts with walnuts and I think it still came out pretty good.”

“Perfect Pesto sauce. Used it with home made semolina noodles. Yum!”

“Excellent pesto–just perfect!”

“Wonderful! I used fresh sweet basil from my garden, EVOO, 3 cloves garlic (I LUVS gahlik!) and the rest. Used some with Recipe #181424, another great recipe!”

“This is the first time I’d made pesto and used this recipe.It is SOOOO yummy!Thanks, Samuel!”

“Fabulous.I made a quarter recipe to use in Recipe#62950.Used my own fresh basil and it was a lovely fresh tasting pesto.”

“This is a fantastic pesto recipe…almost identical to the one that I use.I use slightly more parmesan and slightly less olive oil.As per another reviewer…stick to the pine nuts and don’t leave any unprocessed. I also would not increase the garlic..this is plenty “garlicky” even for garlic lovers. You can really impress dinner guests with this and they have no idea how easy it is.This is the recipe for you to try if you have never made pesto and are looking for one with that classic pesto flavor.Give this one a try!”

“Adding grated Romano, 1/4 the amount of the Parmesan, may help any pesto”

“I thought it was splendid”

“It was very good but not the best I have had.I left some of the nut pieces present as suggested by another viewer.I do NOT suggest doing that. I also used walnuts instead.I wanted to use the cheaper nut.It may have been the best if I had followed the recipe exactly.”

“This recipe was easy to use and so delicious!!I added extra garlic, but I would recommend that you stick to the recipe as the garlic became a little overpowering.I will definately use this recipe again because it was a HUGE hit with my finicky dinner guest!:)”

“This is a good recipe- but the pesto should not be blended completely into a paste. You should blend it only so much that there is a bit of texture left. You should be able to taste the pieces of pine nut.”