Recipes Using Basil Paste

Pesto is one of my favorite condiments to keep on hand. Try these easy, fun pesto recipe variations to brighten pasta, salads, roasted veggies & more!

One of my favorite things about summer is the bounty of fresh herbs that are just outside my doorstep. Fresh herbs make any meal instantly more flavorful and beautiful. My favorite thing to

With all of those fresh herbs (aside from sprinkle them on everything) is to make pesto! It’s especially great for lazy summertime cooking. I like to dollop it on grilled vegetables, pasta, spaghetti squash, salads, eggs, toasted bread, pizza, sandwiches… you get the idea. With just a few easy steps, it makes anything an instant tasty meal, whether you feel like cooking or not.

The Best Ever Homemade Basil Pesto Sauce (easy Recipe)

Traditional pesto is a blend of fresh basil, garlic, pine nuts, extra-virgin olive oil, and Parmesan cheese. With a food processor, it comes together in just a few steps:

That’s it! It’s really simple to make, and it’s easy to vary according to the season or your mood. It will keep for a few days in an airtight container in the fridge, though its surface may start turning brown. As a result, it’s best to cover your pesto with a thin layer of plastic wrap or an extra drizzle of oil before sealing your container. This will keep it fresh and green!

Once you’ve made the classic basil pesto recipe, try changing it up! You can make delicious variations with all sorts of nuts, seeds, veggies, and leafy greens. Here are some of my favorites:

Fresh Pesto Sauce

The obvious choice is tossing pesto with pasta, but your options don’t end there. Spoon it over a Caprese salad, top it onto a grain bowl, scoop it onto spaghetti squash or mac and cheese, or incorporate it into this yummy zucchini casserole. We love it on polenta and homemade pizza, too. It’s even great on scrambled eggs! Do you have a favorite way to use pesto? Let me know in the comments!

This classic basil pesto recipe is nutty and bright. We love it on pasta, pizza, and more! See the post above for my favorite pesto sauce variations.

We love to eat, travel, cook, and eat some more! We create & photograph vegetarian recipes from our home in Chicago, while our shiba pups eat the kale stems that fall on the kitchen floor.You’ll want to drizzle this basil sauce on everything! It’s herby, garlicky and bright green: like a pesto without cheese and nuts.

Best Basil Recipes

Here’s a sauce you’ll want to put on just about everything…bright green basil sauce! It’s packed full of garlicky, herby flavor: essentially like a pesto without the nuts and cheese. It’s more intensely packed with flavor than pesto: like a garlic and basil oil. Use it on just about anything for a punch of fresh flavor: pasta, seafood, juicy ripe tomatoes, Caprese salad…anything is better with basil sauce. Here’s how to make it, the trick to making it stay bright green, and more ways to use it!

The nice thing about basil sauce? Pesto is what we usually make when our basil plant is bushy and overflowing. But pesto calls for pine nuts and Parmesan cheese, which aren’t cheap. Basil sauce drops those pricey ingredients, but you still have all that great fresh basil flavor. It’s a dairy-free and nut-free pesto, similar to a French pistou. This bright green, delicious sauce is endlessly versatile. Here’s what you’ll need to make it:

This basil sauce starts with a step to make sure the sauce stays beautifully bright green. It’s called blanching! Blanching is a cooking method where you boil vegetables until they’re crisp tender, then plunge them into ice water to stop the cooking process. The point of it? To lock in the bright green color of vegetables that turn brown. Here’s how to get a beautifully bright green basil sauce:

One Pot Tomato Basil Pasta

Once you’ve blanched the basil, this basil sauce takes no time at all. Simply add the basil to a blender with the other ingredients and whiz it up! A few notes on blending: you can use a standard blender or even better, a smaller blender like an immersion blender. The amount of sauce is not large, so if you have a small blender it’s easier to blend. You can also use a food processor if you have one.

Basil is easy to grow, and by mid-summer you’ll likely have a big bush of it! If you don’t grow your own basil, it’s time to start. It’s easy to do and requires little tools and planning.Elise founded Simply Recipes in 2003 and led the site until 2019. She has an MA in Food Research from Stanford University.

Every year we plant basil and every year the plants do so well that we can't use it up fast enough. What to do? Basil pesto, of course! Here is a simple recipe.

Tomato Basil Pasta

Most pesto recipes call for Parmesan cheese; we often use Romano which has a stronger flavor. Basil pesto recipes often call for pine nuts, but you can easily substitute walnuts.

Basil is a powerfully aromatic herb and a little goes a long way. You can mellow the pesto out a bit by subbing half of the basil with fresh baby spinach leaves. The pesto will more easily stay vibrant green and the flavor of the basil will still come through, though just not as strongly.

If you want to freeze the pesto, omit the cheese (it doesn't freeze well). Line an ice cube tray with plastic wrap, and fill each cube with the pesto sauce. Freeze and then remove from the ice tray and store in a freezer safe, zip-top bag. When you want to use it, defrost and add the grated Parmesan or Romano.

Fettuccine Pasta Recipe In Tomato Basil Sauce By Archana's Kitchen

Originally from Genoa, Italy, pesto traces its name to the Italian word pestare, which means to crush or pound. For hundreds of years, pesto was made by pounding the ingredients in a mortar and pestle. It dates back from Roman times when Genoans would crush walnuts with herbs and garlic.

The most popular variety of pesto now is made by crushing basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil and some hard cheese in a food processor or blender, but there are many varieties of pesto like sun dried tomato pesto or kale pesto. It's fun to use a mortar and pestle, but the modern way is much easier.

Dried basil is fine for flavoring sauces, soups, and other dishes. But its flavor is very different from fresh basil. You need fresh basil leaves to make pesto. When buying fresh basil, look for vibrant green leaves with no sports or wilting. There are many varieties of basil. Thai basil is really the only kind that's too pungent for this recipe.

Homemade Creamy Basil Pesto Recipe

Basil pesto darkens when exposed to air. To store, cover tightly with plastic wrap, making sure the plastic is touching the top of the pesto and not allowing the pesto to have contact with air. The pesto sauce will stay greener longer that way.

*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2, 000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate. In cases where multiple ingredient alternatives are given, the first listed is calculated for nutrition. Garnishes and optional ingredients are not included.

How To Make Pesto (recipe & Tips)

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In 2009. And after recently featuring it in my Instagram Stories, I decided it was about time this ol’ post got a makeover. The recipe is still the tried and true classic. But the photos have gotten some much needed nipping and tucking. (My Nikon and I have come a long way in the past 8 years!)

Basil pesto is one of my earliest childhood food memories, all thanks to my mom Noni, who made this recipe a staple in our home decades ago. The sauce is rich in flavor (and how about that color!), yet it stars seemingly few ingredients, allowing the fresh basil to take on the starring role.

Easy Classic Basil Pesto Recipe

 Its garlicky without being overwhelming, and it leaves the door wide open for customizations when it comes to nuts. Pine nuts are, of course, the most traditional option. But I’ve followed this exact recipe and substituted in nearly every nut variety with success, from pistachios and walnuts to almonds and even as one reader noted below, macadamia