Fresh, Homemade Pesto for Pasta and Chicken
This homemade pesto is bright and flavorful and comes together incredibly fast in your food processor.
Servings: 6 servings
Ingredients
- ⅔ cup basil leaves, washed
- ½ cup Italian flatleaf parsley leaves, washed
- 1 cup parmesan, divided
- ½ cup walnuts (or pine nuts)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- ⅔ cup olive oil
Instructions
- In the bowl of a food processor, add basil, parsley, ½ cup parmesan, nuts, garlic, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Pulse to finely chop all the ingredients.
- With the food processor running, slowly stream in the olive oil. Leave the food processor running for another minute to finish the blending of the sauce.
- Sauce will keep for up to one week in the refrigerator.
To serve with pasta and/or chicken
- This recipe makes enough sauce for 16 ounces pasta, or 16 chicken tenderloins. Or you can use this sauce with 8 ounces pasta and 8 chicken tenderloins.
- For pasta: Stir the sauce into cooked pasta. Top with the remaining parmesan cheese before serving.For chicken: Reserve ½ pesto sauce. Marinate the chicken tenderloins in the remaining pesto sauce for 30 minutes. Remove the chicken and discard the marinade. Grill or panfry the chicken over medium-high heat for 4-6 minutes per side until cooked through. Top with reserved sauce, and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
Notes
Note: Traditional recipes call for pine nuts. I prefer to use walnuts because they are less expensive but taste great in this recipe.