Making & Freezing Pesto
by Laura Frerichs, Tastemaker in Residence
Pesto freezes beautifully. Make pesto as usual, but leave out the cheese or use the finely grated parmesan that comes in a can (in our opinion, good parmesan doesn’t freeze and re- heat well; you can add it when you re-heat if you want the good stuff). We sometimes will also leave out the nuts in case we want to just make basil/olive oil/ garlic mixture to add to soups and sauces.
We put our pesto mixture in ice cube trays so that they freeze into smaller sized cubes. Once the pesto cubes are frozen, you can pop them out of the trays and put them in larger freezer bags for storage. Then, when you want to add pesto/basil to a recipe this winter, you can take out the amount of cubes you want and add them to your dish.
Hope you enjoy! Here is our favorite pesto recipe.
Makes 6-8 servings
Ingredients
3-4 packed cups fresh basil
2 cloves garlic
1/3 cup nuts
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup parmesan (optional)
Splash of lemon juice
Pinch of salt and pepper
Instructions
- Puree together in a blender or food processor until it becomes uniform. Enjoy!
Cook’s Note - I often make a batch with 3 cups of basil and process it all together, and then add more basil to get it to a thicker consistency of my liking.