Toast the pine nuts in a small, ungreased pan on the stove until they begin to get some brown color.
Add all ingredients (including pine nuts) into a blender and blend. Add more olive oil incrementally if the pesto needs to be thinner.
Notes
Recipe copyright The Foreign Fork. For educational or personal use only.
Basil: Use fresh basil leaves for this recipe.
Parmesan Cheese: Use fresh, high quality grated parmesan cheese. The cheese should be grated so finely that it looks like snow.
Lemon Juice: I like using a freshly juiced lemon.
Pine Nuts: Use unroasted, unsalted pine nuts for this recipe. If you want to skip the roasting step in the instructions, you can buy them roasted, but still make sure they are unsalted.
If you want smaller portions of frozen pesto, you can freeze the pesto in ice cube trays and then transfer the cubes to a plastic bag. This is great to pull out when you are making eggs or need a single serving of pesto for pasta.
During the time of its invention, Giovanni Battista Ratto suggested that when basil wasn’t available, it was possible to make Basil Pesto Sauce WITHOUT basil! He suggests using a mixture of marjoram and parsley. I have never tried this method, but if you do, D’d love to hear what you think!
Traditionally pesto is prepared with a mortar and pestle, but I find the blender to be much simpler.