Description
Learn how to make this bright green pesto sauce that stays bright green for days in the fridge !
Ingredients
Scale
For the pesto sauce
Italian Basil – 1 cup, tightly packed
cashew nuts – 40 gms or ¼ cup
garlic – 3- cloves or 1 tbsp minced
extra virgin olive oil – ¼ cup
cheese spread – 2 or 3 Tbsp
Parmesan cheese – 1 Tbsp
Salt to taste
For the pasta (1 portion)
olive oil – 1 tbsp
minced Garlic – 1 tsp
Pesto sauce 2 Tbsp
Fresh cream or milk – 1 Tbsp (or as needed)
Boiled pasta – 1 cup
Instructions
- First clean and wash the basil. Remove all brown and bruised leaves and thick stems.
- In a pot bring water to a rolling boil. Then dunk the basil leaves in. Cook for 2 mins or just until the leaves soften.
- Then immediately transfer the leaves into a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process.
- Squeeze the basil thoroughly to remove all the water before making pesto.
- In a blender add the squeezed basil and all the other ingredients and blend well with some water. If you don’t want a creamy sauce then omit water and increase the olive oil to ease the blending process. This will yield a chunkier pesto sauce.
- Add some salt to taste at the end.
- Now to make the pasta, in a pan heat some olive oil. Add minced garlic and saute it.
- Then add the pesto sauce and cook till the colour darkens. Adjust the consistency of the sauce with milk and cream.
Add the cooked pasta and cook till the sauce coats the pasta well.
Notes
- My pesto sauce is creamy and emulsified which is quite different from the traditional chunky pesto sauce but you can use it in the exact same way.
- You can store the leftover pesto sauce for 2 weeks in the fridge.
- To use up the entire batch of pesto sauce and to make pasta for 3 people you will need 2 cups raw pasta.
- You can also add any vegetables of your choice to the pasta like boiled broccoli, bell peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, etc.
Keywords: pesto sauce pasta, pesto sauce, bright green pesto sauce.