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My go-to pesto sauce

I found this recipe in a book from the 3-star Michelin French chef Alain Ducasse called Provencal cooking class. You can it download it here
I don’t buy pesto sauce from the supermarket anymore. This sauce tastes so much better, fresher and healthier.
Here are the ingredients you will need: 
  • Extravirgin Olive oil as per the desired texture
  • 30 g of grated parmigiano cheese
  • 30 g of pine nuts
  • 6 stalks of basil
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • Salt
Lu en aparte
I usually remove the garlic’s germ as it is said not to be easy to digest. I also like to quickly chop the basil as the entire leaves can give a (very) hard time to your food processor, especially if you use a mini chopper. Trust me, I killed two of those little creatures.
RIP my mini chopper.
Here are the directions:
  1. Remove the garlic’s germs
  2. Chop the garlic in smaller pieces – no need to mash them 
  3. Add the garlic to your food processor
  4. Add the grated parmigiano
  5. Add the pine nuts
  6. Some salt
  7. Add the olive oil while mixing
  8. Turn the food processor off when you get a smooth and creamy paste
  9. Quickly chop your basil
  10. Add a handful of basil at a time and mix
  11. Add as much olive oil as needed
  12. Transfer to a glass container with a cap and top it with some olive oil

Lu en aparte
Lu en aparte

You can keep the sauce in your fridge for up to a week.
As per the chef’s recommendation, we eat the pesto sauce with vegetables soup. My children LOVE it. I usually cook some vermicelli pasta separately and add it to my children’s servings.  

Lu en aparte


I also use it instead of butter or mayonnaise/ketchup sauce. For instance, I spread some on a toasted slice of bread and top it with some slices of avocado. I also use it to make veggies hamburger.  
For my younger child’s birthday party, I wanted to bake a sundried tomatoes pesto bread. As I was running out of time and was out of some ingredients, I went to my local supermarket and bought a jar from a famous brand that starts with a B…
Back home, I looked at the ingredients and felt I was kind of screwed up.
Here are the ingredients:
  • Sunflower Seed Oil 46.1% -> where is the olive oil ?
  • Basil 31%
  • Cashew Nuts -> where are the pine nuts ?
  • Natural Flavours -> does is mean the cashew nuts are tasteless ?
  • Grana Padano DOP Cheese 4.6% – where is the parmigiano cheese ?
  • Salt
  • Pecorino Romano DOP Cheese 1.2% -> huh ?
  • Sugar -> ah yes , sugar to give the sauce some taste 
  • Extravirgin Olive Oil 1% -> ahhhh here is the olive oil that represents only 1% in the jar
  • Basil Extract -> so in addition to the cashew nuts, basil has no taste either
  • Garlic
  • Traces of: Eggs, other Shelled Fruit.
No further comment…
I hope you will give it a try.

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