Simple, Classic Pesto (Pesto Genovese) | Staples from Scratch

Pesto is one of my all-time favorite sauces. It is simple and fresh, but despite its minimal ingredients it is bursting with flavor and color. The first time I made pesto from scratch was on a school field trip in my early teens to a few towns across Italy. Which, looking back was a WILD field trip for a bunch of highschoolers from Texas. But I remember how much I loved how easy it was making it from scratch.

However, I really and truly fell in love with pesto while traveling around Italy while studying abroad in Venice my junior year of college. I was hiking the town of Cinque Terre when I stumbled upon a hole-in-the-wall shop in Riomaggiore that sold pesto that they were making by hand using a traditional mortar and pestle. Between my less-than fluent Italian and the shopkeeper’s enthusiasm, an impromptu cooking lesson was had. And while the ingredients and recipe were the same classic ones that I’d learned years before and had been making since, this sweet old man passionate about his pesto taught me a few tricks that made all the difference.

• Use cold tools. While I’m sure he’d be appalled by my choice of cooking instruments (a food processor versus a mortar and pestle) I do make sure that I pop my machine’s blade and bowl in the fridge for 10-15 minutes before I make a batch. He used a chilled marble set of tools- watching him slowly grind the leaves was mesmerizing!
• Want greener pesto? Use cold ingredients. Wash your basil leaves in cold water and use cold olive oil.
• Types of ingredients are everything. Apparently there is some contention about cheese- how very Italian. I’ve always used Parmigiano Reggiano and the shopkeeper did as well, however some Italians think it is absolutely necessary to add a couple of tablespoons of Pecorino for the extra salt content as well. And knowing that Riomaggiore is a scant 50ish miles down the coast from Genoa where pesto originated (thus the name Pesto Genovese) I’ll take his word for it. Another Genovese ingredient is Genovese Basil- also called sweet basil. And while many types of basil work for this recipe, the round-leaved sweet basil is best!

Classic Pesto Ingredients

Classic Pesto Method

Now, the method of grinding the basil leaves is where I’ve updated this recipe. While there is something magical about listening a pestle quickly whir around the mortar bowl to create a beautiful basil paste, it can be quite time consuming for hands that aren’t about 75 years old and dappled brown by sunlight. And knowing that I make multiple pesto batches at once to use up my garden’s bounty to freeze, I need a little help. So instead of using cold marble, make sure to pop the bowl and blade of your food processor in the fridge before using it.

The rest is simple! Just prep your basil leaves by removing the woody stems (save these to use for stock or dehydrate!) pop all of the ingredients in your food processor and blend. If you want a more homogenous blend, try chopping the garlic and using a grater or a vegetable peeler to create easier-to-blend cheese pieces. Blitz the solid items a few times with all of the ingredients except the olive oil. Then slowly add the olive oil to the blend, and it turns out lovely and smooth.

Transfer immediately into an airtight container if not using it to cook right then- you don’t want it to oxidize! And then store in the refrigerator for up to a week. *OR* if you want to preserve the taste of summer for the cold winter months, add pesto into lidded silicone ice cube trays, freeze, then transfer to an airtight, freezer safe container (like a Stasher Bag!)

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