What do you do when you get a big bag of fresh basil? You can make pasta sauce with it or put a few leaves on pizza. But what would we do with the rest after that? We decided to make a delicious pesto.
If you have made pesto yourself, you will no longer use store-bought pesto. This pesto tastes a lot fresher and fuller than any other pesto from a jar.
We make this pesto just a little better with lemon juice and cashew nuts instead of pine nuts. The fatter cashew nuts give the pesto a creamier taste. That is why we use a little less Parmesan cheese. Otherwise, it will become a pesto that’s too rich.
We use an equal amount of basil and arugula. The arugula makes the pesto just a little bit sharper. We like that.
The first thing you do is grind the cashew nuts to a pulp. We do this with a bit of rock salt, a clove of garlic and lemon juice. After grinding, you immediately see that the cashew nuts are nice and fat.
Then we cram in the rest of the ingredients without the oil. We add the oil little by little until the pesto is as thick as you want. To use the pesto as marinate, you can add a little more oil to make it thinner. We like this pesto a bit thicker. We will not use the pesto in one go, so we can make it as thin as we want before use.
The basil and arugula may get stuck in the cup. So it’s a good idea to give it a good shake between grinding.
With a bit of pesto, you can quickly flavour your pasta, pizza or grilled fish. If you have made so much that you can’t finish it in a week, you can freeze it. Fill an ice cube tray with the pesto and put these cubes in a ziplock bag after freezing. Every time you want to use pesto, take out a cube and thaw it in the fridge.
If you are going to make this pesto, let us know in the comments below. Or better! Take a photo and post it on Instagram. Tag @bbq.heroes so we can see what you made.
Ingredients
- 50 grams of unsalted cashew nuts
- Juice of half a lemon
- 1 garlic clove
- A little coarse salt
- 20 grams fresh basil leaves
- 20 grams of fresh arugula leaves
- 50 ml olive oil
- 25 grams Parmesan cheese
- chilli flakes
Instructions
- Put the cashew nuts with a bit of salt, the clove of garlic and the lemon juice in a blender. Grind it until you have an almost even pulp.
- Then add the basil and arugula. Add a little olive oil and grind into a thick pesto.
- Finally, add the grated parmesan cheese and some chilli flakes.
- Season with a little more salt to taste. Thin the pesto slightly with extra olive oil before use.
