Pesto Recipes, and other Basil Uses

General Gardening
#1

Can you share your favorite pesto recipes, how you use your pesto, and any other ideas for using basil please.

I bought 7 different types of seed and they’re all growing incredibly well. Advice for proper care would also be appreciated.

My tomatoes aren’t ripe yet. My favorite way to eat basil is with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper.

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#2

I dont have a favorite recipe but I do want to mention that invasive garlic mustard makes a decent pesto when harvest young.

Garlic Mustard (psu.edu)

Foraged Garlic Mustard Pesto Recipe - Eat the Invasives! - Leda Meredith

Best Garlic Mustard Pesto Recipe - How to Make Herb Pesto Sauce (food52.com)

Garlic Mustard Pesto Recipe (ediblewildfood.com)

Garlic Mustard Pesto – Anise to Za’atar (anisetozaatar.com)

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#3

Basil and pine nuts in a Ninja blender.

My favorite basil is Greek columnar.

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#4

Due to various food sensitivities in my family, ours uses almonds and fontina instead of parmesan and pine nuts. Still good. We freeze it in batches using a silicone ice cube tray and use the cubes all winter.

I can only successfully grow the new mildew resistant varieties these days…

I also like just mincing the basil with some garlic and tossing it in pasta. Sorta a deconstructed pesto.

Garlic scapes make a super tasty pesto too!

I tried making an oregano pesto…didn’t like it all as a sauce, but it made a good chicken marinade.

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#5

Absolutely!

#6

We love using pesto on meat! Spread on chicken and baked with or without cheese.
Recently, DH sliced open a pork loin, spread it with the pesto and other herbs from the garden, closed back up and roasted and it was delicious.

Last year, I froze up chopped basil and melted butter by filling an ice cube tray about halfway up with the mix and after frozen, popping them out and freezing them wrapped in plastic wrap/film. Having them already to go in the smaller sizes was great for adding to sauces, sautees, etc. over the winter.

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#7

First pesto recipe I ever saw and the one I still use is in the original Moosewood Cookbook.

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#8

My favorite pesto recipe uses walnuts instead of pine nuts. I like it better. I make mine in my food processor:

  1. Chop 2 garlic cloves in processor
  2. Add 2 cups basil, 1 t salt, 1/3 cup walnuts and grind to paste
  3. Add 1/3 cup olive oil as processor is running
  4. Add 1/2 fresh grated parmesan cheese (from a block, not can), salt and pepper

I also freeze in ice cube trays, then bag and vacuum seal with the food saver. It lasts forever

My favorite quick meal is to add to pasta and chicken. I microwave for 20 seconds to thaw and add a bit of the pasta water before adding the pasta and chicken.

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#9

I’m growing some Genovese Basil now for pesto. It’s been a while, but I make a pretty generic pesto recipe that I thoroughly enjoyed. Pine nuts used to be hard to find here, and these days I’m afraid of pine mouth syndrome, so I use peanuts or any other readily available nut.

I’ve tried and failed thrice to get garlic mustard seeds to sprout. I’m really keen on trying it out, especially since bulb garlic is proving challenging to grow here. What’s the flavor profile like? Is it very very strongly garlic-flavored, or a bit weaker? Does it have mustard’s peculiar heat? What about the older leaves? For reference, I’ve tasted Society Garlic and Garlic Vine (Mansoa alliacea), and so far, both seem noticeably weaker than bulb garlic, despite having the same unmistakable flavor.

I grew some Huacatay years ago, twice, and lost it both times to crass mismanagement. I’ve since tried to grow it thrice more times as well, with no germination. I wanna try making a pesto out of it, since I didn’t get to do it the last times I grew it.