I love making pesto with whatever seasonal greens I have available. This fall and winter my garden ended up loaded with Italian Parsley. I left some parsley growing from the previous year and they reseeded throughout the whole garden bed. Pistachio nuts are the best nut in my opinion to pair with parsley. It really brings out the earthy slightly lemony flavour of the parsley. Pesto is such a versatile food. It can be used as a dip for almost anything or mixed with cooked pasta or vegetable "noodles" or zucchini "zoodles. You can top roasted vegetables with it as well or use it as the sauce for your pizza instead of a traditional red sauce. This recipe has two versions: a traditional one and a Vegan/Paleo/Whole30 and Keto version. You are going to love both versions! Both can be frozen for up to 4 months of so. I recommend using un-shelled roasted pistachios over the shelled. It's more work to shell them yourselves but they taste a lot better and fresher. The amount of servings indicated in this recipe is with 1 pound of pasta. If you are using it with zucchini or other vegetable noodles, it will be about the same amount of servings. If you are using it as an appetizer it will of course provide many many more servings.
For the traditional pesto version, place all of the ingredients(except for the cheese) in a food processor and pulse until you the ingredients are broken down and fairly smooth, but with the chunks of the pistachios still visible. Then add your grated cheese and pulse very briefly just to combine. Serve as you desire either as an appetizer, pizza sauce, with noodles or whatever comes to mind!
For the Dairy Free Pesto Version, combine all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and pulse until smooth. Make sure you can still see small chucks of the pistachios in the sauce.
Both versions can be stored in the fridge for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 5 months or so.
Ingredients
Directions
For the traditional pesto version, place all of the ingredients(except for the cheese) in a food processor and pulse until you the ingredients are broken down and fairly smooth, but with the chunks of the pistachios still visible. Then add your grated cheese and pulse very briefly just to combine. Serve as you desire either as an appetizer, pizza sauce, with noodles or whatever comes to mind!
For the Dairy Free Pesto Version, combine all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and pulse until smooth. Make sure you can still see small chucks of the pistachios in the sauce.
Both versions can be stored in the fridge for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 5 months or so.