Homemade pesto with fresh basil is one of the simple foodie joys of summer, in my humble opinion. I’ve jumped the gun a little this year, because I found a huge bag of bright green, beautiful basil leaves at my grocery store last month. Still a little early for local basil, but this did the trick to tide me over until all the farmer’s markets start up in June.
I made the Barefoot Contessa’s standard basil pesto that I’ve been making for a while now (that’s the bright green jar on the left), but I also tried something new this year.
If you’ve ever been horrified by the amount of oil in pesto (I definitely have), Angela over at Oh She Glows (an amazing vegan website that I’ve been cooking from a ton lately, especially this and this), created a lighter pesto with only a 1/4 cup of oil, and a whole bunch of sundried tomatoes. It’s a neat little twist on the classic version. I ate this with pasta (above) and tossed with some roasted potatoes. Nicole made it as well and notes that it will be awesome in cold pasta salads all summer!
Sundried Tomato Basil Pesto
Source: Oh She Glows
Yield: about 3/4 cup of pesto (1 small jar)
Ingredients
2 garlic cloves
1/2 cup basil leaves, packed (20 grams)
7 oil packed sundried tomatoes (55 grams)
3-4 tbsp walnuts
1/4 cup olive oil
6-8 tbsp water
1/4 tsp each kosher salt & pepper
Directions
- Add the garlic, basil leaves, sundried tomatoes and walnuts to the food processor. Process until finely chopped.
- With the processor running, stream in the olive oil, then water until mixture is smooth and pesto-like. Season with salt and pepper. Store in a little jar in the fridge for a week or so, then freeze any you have leftover.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m going to start making my own pesto, thanks for a good recipe!
I have to say, I never comment, but your blog is the first place I look when looking for a new recipe idea. I am rarely disappointed.
I was super excited today to see a pesto recipe. The sun-dried tomato basil pesto is delicious! I can’t wait to use it tonight on our roasted potatoes and later this week on pasta. Keep the recipes coming!
yay catherine! thank you so much for reading, this made my day! i’m so excited for summer produce, so we’ll cook our way through corn, basil, tomato and zucchini seasons!
Well, I agree with your humble opinion
. This is a really great idea! Though, I don’t really care about the amount of oil in pesto since it goes so far! this must taste really, REALLY nice.
so true, a small spoonful of pesto really does go far, but sometimes i’m hesitant about adding all that oil. it’s just too good not to make though!
Oh yeah!! Love it!!
That sounds great! I have used an in-dried tomato to replace the oil in pesto but it was kind of watery. This is genius!
Yum! I just made some plain pesto myself, but this looks great for all the basil I have left!
that’s exactly what i did! made the original then wondered what to do with the rest!