Pesto Sauce

Pesto is a sauce originated in Italy which means pound or crush. Typically Pesto is made in mortar pestle.

Traditionally Pesto is made with Basil and pine nuts. But today I am making the pesto sauce with ingredients that are sitting in my fridge for couple of days. I chose to use combination of spinach and basil leaves with walnuts. I added in the green chilli which is not at all a traditional ingredient in Pesto.

There are gazillion different things that can be done with this sauce - couple of them being pasta sauces, spread for bread, grilled cheese sandwiches, pizza sauces and the list goes on :)..

Below is the recipe for Pesto with couple of my additions and changes..

Ingredients

2 cups fresh basil leaves

1 cup Spinach
3 cloves garlic

3 tablespoons walnuts
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 green chillies (Optional)

Method

Wash the basil leaves and spinach, discard the stems, and dry thoroughly.
In a blender, add garlic, walnuts, green chillies and salt. Blend for 15 seconds.
Add in the basil leaves and spinach leaves - use the pulse technique and turn on and off, to shred the basil and spinach leaves.
Once the leaves are shredded, turn on the blender and with the blender going on, drizzle in the olive oil from the top opening of the blender, to create a coarse paste.
Add the Parmesan cheese and give it a couple of pulses to combine.
Store in refrigerator until ready to use.

Note

Instead of 2 cups basil and 1 cup spinach you can use 3 cups of basil or mix of spinach and spicy arugula.
If you are planning to store the pesto for a couple of days, do not add the Parmesan cheese to the pesto, instead add the Parmesan cheese when you ready to use the pesto.