Easy Homemade Pesto
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No need for store-bought pesto anymore. This recipe is so easy with just 5 ingredients. And it takes just 5 min to make too!
I somehow always have extra basil on hand so I’ve found myself making pesto on a weekly basis. It’s one of the easiest things to make – with the help of a food processor – and it requires so little ingredients! Plus, having a jar of pesto in your fridge is always a life saver for those busy weeknights. All you have to do is cook up some pasta, slather on that pesto and sprinkle on some Parmesan. Done and done.
Now if you’re used to store-bought pesto, believe me when I tell you that this homemade version will change your life. It’s just so much more vibrant and fresh, and you can control exactly how runny or thick you want your pesto to be. Just be sure to add more olive oil until your desired consistency is reached.
I should also tell you that this is best made when using a food processor, not a blender. I have tried using a blender and the consistency just isn’t the same. And I know that pine nuts (also called pignolias) can be a bit pricey but one small 8-ounce bag of pine nuts will last you a lifetime. And it gives you an excuse to make more pesto for next time!
Easy Homemade Pesto
Ingredients
- 1 cup fresh basil leaves
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled
- 3 tablespoons pine nuts
- ⅓ cup freshly grated Parmesan
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- ⅓ cup olive oil
Equipment
Instructions
- To make the pesto, combine basil, garlic, pine nuts and Parmesan in the bowl of a food processor; season with salt and pepper, to taste. With the motor running, add olive oil in a slow stream until emulsified; set aside.
- Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
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Made this but needed to sub the garlic for garlic powder and used Kraft parmesan cheese! I don’t have a food processor but my blender worked just fine. It still came out really good! I added the pesto to some rotini and added some white mushrooms to the mix and it was delicious! I can’t wait to try it with actual garlic and fresh parmesan.
Substitute for pine nuts???
Sunflower seeds,pistachios or almonds.
Choose the nut that you like best as a substitute. I like walnuts best.
Great recipe! I have made it yesterday and everyone in my home sweet home totally loved it! Thanks for sharing
It was a very easy recipe and delicious .thank you for the easy recipe.
Amazing made this tonight with gnocchi and chicken!!
Tastes really good, but do I have to store it for 1 week in the refrigerator. Can I use it like after 1 hour of making it?
Hey Victoria,
You can use it right away. The comment about storing it in the fridge is just saying it will go bad after a week.
It won’t necessarily go bad, it is just best used within the week.
Thanks for recepe, will try to make it, but now difficult to find ingredients many things not in the stor
I’m making this for the opposite reason: they kept not having the pre-made one in stock!
Thank you. Will enjoy tonight!
Love your recipes.
Very simple and concise step by step procedure. Will make this for sure and my family will love it.
love ur easy to read recipets. thk u.
All I can say is perfect Totally the best.
I used this recipe the best i ever ate love it make it almost once a week
This was awesome, though admittedly I used this recipe as a base. I didn’t have a lot of basil, so i used mostly spinach with SOME basil. I also didn’t have pine nuts, so i subbed walnuts. But holy moly it was good! I used some of the leftovers today to make a vinaigrette, so i’m pretty stoked to have my salad for lunch!
I have two question.
#1 – I am from Indonesia and basil in our country is smaller in size but stronger in flavour. How to adjust this recipe. If I was to use the whole cup of local basil for this recipe, I think the aroma of basil will be overpowering. If I decrease the amount, will I still get good consistency and colour? #2 – in my country pine nut is just ridiculously expensive. Can I substitute it with cashew or peanut, or just omit it? Thank you.
Hi Daniel! Unfortunately, I am not familiar with basil in Indonesia so I cannot really say how much the recipe will change with increasing or decreasing the amount of basil. Additionally, pine nuts is key for a very good pesto so I do not recommend substituting. Hope this answers your questions. Good luck!
Hi , you can replace pinenut with pistachios , it will offcourse wont taste siimilar like originally with pinenut but still taste good as usually i make it with pistachio as pinenut is expensive and not available always at my place.Hope this helps
Absolutely delicious! I substituted pumpkin seeds for the pine nuts because I have an allergy and I could not taste the difference, just as yummy. I’ve also used walnuts in the past and these worked perfectly.
It won’t necessarily go bad, it is just best used within the week.
Yet well it’s very good
Thank you sooo much for sharing this recipe. It’s amazingly good. Way better than store bought pesto sauce.
So I just finished making this about 10 minutes ago. I couldn’t wait to try it so I grabbed a teaspoon and ate a spoonful of it. I found it to be very spicy and overpowering with garlic, however, I decided to take a tablespoonful of it and spread it on a piece of bread instead of eating it by itself and it was excellent. I would totally make this again and again. I would however probably use smaller clubs of garlic just so that it wasn’t so overpowering.
Just made this pesto, it is delicious, so easy to make all done in a food processor, takes about 10 minutes.
OMG! Such a great recipe! I have made this last night! The taste was so great as it looks! Thanks a lot for sharing with us.
I made it, really easy to prepare, tastes fantastic.
Delicious, quick and easy!