About Pesto: A Short History, Nutrition Facts, Buying Guide and How to Make Pesto

Pesto is a typical sauce from Italy, originally from Liguria. Pesto sauce is mainly based on crushed basil, garlic, grated hard cheese such as Parmigiano, pine nuts and olive oil.

The most famous recipe will use Genovese basil, a plant that actually stems from North Africa and tropical Asia, more exactly: India. The first pesto recipe may date back to ancient Roman times, where a grated hard cheese was eaten with basil. As Liguria in Italy was one of the first regions of Europe to cultivate basil, it is no wonder that most Pesto recipes stem from this regions where the ancient form was transformed into what we know today as Pesto: the fine paste-like mixture based on basil leaves, sometimes even parsley, crushed garlic, grated hard cheese like Parmigiano (Parmesan cheese) or Pecorino cheese and roasted pine nuts.

There is red form of Pesto, too. This Pesto rosso stems from Sicily in Southern Italy and will use sun dried tomatoes and maybe red bell peppers for its preparation. All forms will make use of extra virgin olive oil, very high quality oil. Read more about the typical Pesto ingredients here.

According to some, the Pesto has to be prepared using a marble mortar and a wooden pestle for best results, however, in the modern world we often prefer to use a blender or food processor.

Pesto Trivia

In March 2007 we witnessed the first Pesto world championship. There were more than 100 attendants to the challenge. The goal of the event was to promote the pesto culture worldwide and in the same time – of course – the related regions Genoa and Liguria. The name “Pesto alla Genovese” was also filed to become a registered trademark, pretty much as Parmigiano before.

In opposition to the likewise Italian Alfredo Sauce, Pesto is widely known and enjoyed by the locals, rather than just a dish popular among tourists.

Buying Pesto

Usually the main ingredient should be extra virgin olive oil, but cheap products might replace it with other, cheaper, oils (sometimes even sun flower oil might be used). While there is no harm in this, it is not the best pesto experience you can get and you should search for. Also be aware of lower quality cheese, sometimes merchandised in stores as Parmesan. Sometimes, Pesto containing a certain quantity of sugar has been observed, or the usage of citric acid instead of lemon juice. The usage of nuts sauce instead pine nuts might be another point where some industrial pesto products will deliver you a poorer culinary experience than you deserve. Commercialized pesto sauce might have even other ingredients that can change the taste. So we will advise you to take a closer look on the ingredients before buying. The best choice, however, is still the homemade Pesto. If you prefer to get some ready to use sauces, we will work on a small collection we recommend when you want to buy Pesto online.

Pesto Nutrition Facts

Commercial pesto is commonly available in supermarkets either in it’s green form (pesto alla genovese) or as the red one (with sun-dried tomatoes or red bell peppers). The commercial pesto has around 430 calories per 100 grams (that would be some 3.5 oz). If you get a really good pesto based on traditional ingredients, you should be lucky and consider Pesto a healthy dish: pine nuts have the highest concentrations of any seeds when it comes to proteins: they contain not less than 31 grams per 100 grams. Moreover they feature a high concentration of monounsaturated fat, just as olive oil, which adds to its list of benefis also a great deal of antioxidative substances.

Cooking with Pesto – Pesto Dishes and Recipes

For Italians, Pesto means, first of all, a sauce they serve with any kind of pasta. But much more than this: pesto can be prepared and served with otherkind of dishes, too. I tried it even with shrimp recipes. The results were wonderful. The internationalized kitchen contributed just as much as Italian innovations to a growing stock of pesto recipes with different ingredients and flavors. We have collected them for you on our site. Please enjoy them at least as much as we do