Pesto: classic recipe with basil

You can make your own basil pesto recipe for the winter using inexpensive ingredients. Of course, it will differ from the original Italian, but it will also give any second dish a unique taste and unforgettable aroma. The sauce is believed to have originated in Genoa and was first described in 1863 by Batta Ratto's father and son. But there is information that it was prepared in ancient Rome.

How to make basil pesto sauce

Pesto refers to sauces made from minced ingredients. It is based on the green basil of the Genovese variety, pine seeds, olive oil, hard sheep cheese - parmesan or pecorino. There are many varieties of pesto with different complementary ingredients. In Italy, the sauce is often made with almonds, fresh and sun-dried tomatoes; in Austria, pumpkin seeds are added. The French love recipes with garlic, the Germans replace basil with wild garlic. In Russia, it is difficult to find pine seeds (Italian pine); instead, pine nuts are used.

But how can pesto be made for the winter? It is unlikely that cheese mixed with butter, nuts and herbs will be stored for a long time, although there will be no problems with the rest of the ingredients under proper conditions. It is simply excluded from the recipe and added before serving.

Winter Basil Pesto Recipes

Of course, when preparing for the winter, the basil pesto sauce will be far from the original. But, getting to another country, all national recipes are modified. Locals adapt them to their tastes and products they are used to.

The classic winter basil pesto recipe

If Parmesan is not included in the sauce, it can be stored for a long time. This winter basil pesto recipe comes closest to classic Italian. Before serving, add grated sheep cheese to it and mix well. In the economy version, you can use any hard cheese and any basil.

Ingredients:

• basil of the Genovese variety - a large bunch;
• pine nuts - 30 g;
• olive oil - 150 ml;
• lemon juice - 10 ml;
• garlic - 1 large clove;
• salt, pepper - to taste.

Preparation:

1. Basil is thoroughly washed and rinsed with cold water.
2. Lemon juice is squeezed out and measured.
3. The garlic is freed from the scales and cut into several pieces for convenience.
4. Prepared ingredients and pine nuts are placed in the blender bowl.
5. Grind, add lemon juice and half of olive oil, salt and pepper.
6. Beat thoroughly, gradually adding butter (not all).
7. Place the pesto sauce in small sterile jars.
8. A layer of oil is poured on top for better preservation.
9. Close with a lid and refrigerate.

As you can see in the photo, the classic recipe for pesto with basil is beautiful pistachio color.

Purple Basil Pesto Recipe

Actually, little depends on the color of basil for the inexperienced taste of a person who is not familiar with the Mediterranean smithy. But a resident of Italy will say that the taste becomes more intense and harsh from purple leaves. This pesto will also taste sour. But what can you do - if you pour a little lemon juice or neglect it altogether, the sauce will turn out to be not a beautiful lilac color, but an indistinct brown.

Ingredients:

• purple basil - 100 g;
• pistachios - 50 g;
• garlic - 2 cloves;
• lemon juice - 1 tbsp. the spoon;
• olive oil - 75 ml;
• salt - 0.5 tsp.

In the recipe, the amount of olive oil is indicated only for the sauce. To fill its surface, you should take an additional portion.

Preparation:

1. First, grind the pistachios with a blender.
2. Then add the basil leaves washed and separated from the branches, peeled garlic cut into several parts.
3. When the mass becomes homogeneous, add salt, lemon juice and a little oil.
4. Continue to beat, adding olive oil a little.
5. Spread the finished pesto sauce in sterile small jars.
6. Pour a thin layer of olive oil on top, cover with a lid and put it in the refrigerator.

Red Basil Pesto

For the sauce to be red, it is not enough to use basil with leaves of this color for its preparation. Nuts, butter, and other ingredients in the recipe will make the pesto look ugly. Now, if you add tomatoes, they will acidify the sauce and enhance the color.

Ingredients:

• basil with red leaves - 20 g;
• pine nuts - 3 tbsp. spoons;
• sun-dried tomatoes - 100 g;
• garlic - 2 cloves;
• capers - 1 tbsp the spoon;
• balsamic vinegar - 1 tbsp. the spoon;
• olive oil - 100 ml;
• salt.

Preparation:

1. Wash the basil, rinse, tear off the leaves, put in a blender bowl.
2. Add peeled and cut garlic, nuts, sun-dried tomatoes, capers.
3. Grind, add salt, capers, pour in balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
4. Beat until smooth.
5. Sterilize the jar and add the tomato and basil pesto sauce.
6. Pour some olive oil on top, close the lid and put in the refrigerator.

Basil pesto sauce with tomatoes

This sauce will turn out nice and tasty. Pepper can be omitted from the recipe.

Ingredients:

• basil - 1 bunch;
• chopped walnuts - 0.3 cups;
• sun-dried tomatoes - 6 pcs.;
• olive oil - 0.3 cups;
• salt - 0.5 tsp;
• garlic - 2 cloves;
• ground pepper - 0.25 tsp.

Preparation:

1. Wash the basil, tear off the leaves and place in a blender bowl.
2. Add peeled and chopped garlic, nuts and tomatoes to herbs, chop.
3. Add pepper and salt.
4. Beat until smooth, gradually pouring in the oil.
5. Put in a sterile jar.
6. Pour some oil on top, close, send to the refrigerator.

Pesto with walnuts and basil

This sauce is often prepared by residents of regions where it is impossible to get pine seeds, and pine nuts are very expensive. Due to the large number of walnuts, the pesto becomes similar to pkhali, in which basil was used instead of cilantro. In any case, the sauce is delicious.

Ingredients:

• green basil - 100 leaves;
• walnut - 50 g;
• olive oil - 100 ml;
• lemon juice - 1 tbsp. the spoon;
• mint - 10 leaves;
• garlic - 1-2 cloves;
• salt.

Preparation:

1. Basil and mint are washed, the leaves are cut off.
2. Nuts are crushed with a rolling pin so that it is convenient to grind them with a blender.
3. Squeeze the juice out of the lemon.
4. The garlic is peeled and cut into several pieces.
5. Basil, mint, nuts and garlic are placed in a blender bowl, chopped.
6. Add salt and lemon juice, interrupt, gradually pouring in olive oil.
7. Place the pesto sauce in a sterile jar.
8. The top layer is poured with a small amount of oil, closed, put into the refrigerator.

Pesto with parsley and basil

This recipe makes a vibrant green pesto sauce.It usually turns out to be olive, as basil leaves tarnish after processing. Here, thanks to the parsley juice, the color is preserved.

Since the recipe contains a lot of greens, it will not be stored for long, even in the refrigerator. But pesto can be sent to the freezer. It will stay there for several months, even if the cheese is added immediately. These recipes are called cryos, and they are rarely prepared just because there is always not enough space in the freezers.

Ingredients:

• green basil - 2 bunches;
• parsley - 1 bunch;
• pine nuts - 60 g;
• garlic - 4 cloves;
• Parmesan cheese - 40 g;
• padano cheese - 40 g;
• olive oil - 150 g;
• salt.

The relatively small amount of olive oil (compared to other recipes) is due to the fact that the pesto will freeze rather than stand in the refrigerator. If you replace hard sheep's cheese with regular cheese, the sauce will turn out to be completely different, but still tasty.

Preparation:

1. The greens are thoroughly washed.
2. The leaves of the basil are cut off, the thick stalks of parsley are cut off.
3. Fold into a blender bowl, grind.
4. Peeled garlic, pine nuts, grated cheese are added.
5. Interrupt, gradually introducing olive oil, until a pasty consistency.
6. They are laid out in portions in small vessels or plastic bags, sent to the freezer.

Basil and Arugula Pesto Recipe

Seemingly cooked with arugula the sauce contains too many herbs to be stored for long. But Indau contains mustard oil, which has preservative properties. The pesto with arugula tastes spicy, with a pronounced pleasant bitterness.

Ingredients:

• basil - 1 bunch;
• arugula - 1 bunch;
• pine nuts - 60 g;
• garlic - 2 cloves;
• olive oil - 150 ml;
• salt.

Preparation:

1. Wash the herbs, cut off the leaves of the basil.
2. Peel and cut the garlic into several pieces.
3. Put all the ingredients in a blender thicket, except for salt and olive oil, and grind.
4. Add remaining ingredients and beat until smooth.
5. Put the pesto sauce in a sterile jar, close, refrigerate.

Helpful hints and notes

When preparing pesto for the winter according to different recipes, housewives may find the following information useful:

1. If you pour a lot of olive oil into the sauce, it will turn out to be liquid, a little - thick.
2. The flavor of the pesto is highly dependent on the nuts used in the recipe.
3. Cheese is not added to long-term storage sauce. But it happens that the hostess cooked a lot of pesto, or accidentally put Parmesan in the winter preparation. What to do? Pack into portioned sachets and place in the freezer.
4. With green basil, the pesto will taste and aroma softer than adding red or purple leaves.
5. To keep the winter sauce better, add a little more garlic and acid (if provided by the recipe) to it than to the regular one.
6. It is customary to add lemon juice to purple basil pesto to preserve color. To preserve and enhance the red color, the sauce is made with tomatoes.
7. The more olive oil, salt and garlic you add to the pesto, the longer it will last.
8. It is better to add not fresh tomatoes to winter sauce, but sun-dried or tomato paste.
9. Only basil leaves can be added to pesto. From the crushed stalks, the sauce will lose its delicate consistency and will taste bitter.
10. When sun-dried tomatoes are present in a recipe, small cherry tomatoes are always meant, not large fruits.
11. There are about 10 leaves on a sprig of “correct” basil, each of which weighs about 0.5 g.
12. All pesto recipes are approximate and take liberties from the outset. Here you do not need to measure ingredients up to 1 g or ml, and if you take a few less or more basil leaves, nothing bad will happen.
13. Those who like to do everything according to the rules, and have enough time for this, can replace the blender with a mortar and grind the components of the recipes by hand.
14. When making large quantities of pesto, you can use a meat grinder instead of a blender.
15. For a sauce that is supposed to be stored for a long time, you should take only fresh, and not "reanimated" greens.
16. Approximate volume of 50 g of grated hard goat cheese - a glass.
17. Roasting the nuts while making pesto will change the taste for the better, but the shelf life will be reduced.

What to eat with basil pesto sauce

Pesto is one of the most famous and common sauces. The recipe initially allows for liberties, it is on the ingredients that not only the consistency of the product depends, but also what it is accepted to eat with. But this, as they say, is a matter of taste.

Pesto sauce can be added:

• in any pasta (pasta);
• for cheese cuts;
• when baking fish, and it is believed that cod and salmon are best in harmony with pesto;
• for making all kinds of sandwiches;
• add pesto to potato, carrot and pumpkin soups;
• for marinating and baking (including grilling) poultry, lamb, pork;
• pesto with tomatoes goes well with eggplant;
• to dry-cured pork;
• poured pesto with mozzarella and tomato;
• used to make other sauces;
• when baking potatoes, mushrooms;
• sauce is an indispensable ingredient in minestrone and avocado cream soup.

Terms and conditions of storage

It is believed that the "right" pesto sauce should only be fresh. But Italians and residents of other southern regions can afford such a luxury. In Russia, most of the year, greens cost so much that you don't want any sauce, and you can cook something tasty from the one grown on the windowsill only for a holiday.

It is sometimes said that cheese pesto can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. It is not true. The sauce may sound good, but certain chemical processes are already running in it that can harm the body.

Shelf life of pesto with cheese:

• in the refrigerator - 5 days;
• in the freezer - 1 month.

If you prepare the sauce without cheese, put it in sterile jars of a small container, and pour olive oil on top, it will be stored in the refrigerator for 2-3 months. But only if the oil layer is preserved! If it dries out or becomes disturbed, the pesto will have to be thrown away in order not to harm your health. Therefore, it is advised to pack the sauce in small containers - you will have to eat it within 5 days maximum after opening the jar.

In the freezer, pesto without cheese will last up to 6 months. But it should be remembered that you need to eat it in a day. Do not re-freeze the sauce.

Conclusion

The recipe for pesto sauce for the winter from basil is easy to prepare, especially since it allows such liberties that you can make both an economy option and an expensive seasoning for the festive table. Of course, after freezing, all foods change their taste. But pesto will still make a great addition to boring pasta and add variety to other dishes.

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