Sun-dried tomato pesto is a fun, extra delicious, and extra addictive recipe. It's easy to make with just a few ingredients. With the perfect combination of sun-dried tomatoes, basil, garlic, and parmesan, it's always ready to go for pasta, pizza, or even as part of a cheese platter.
Ingredients for Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto
You can increase or decrease the number of ingredients I'm about to tell you, depending on your taste. The only point you need to pay attention to is the salt ratio, as in many recipes. If you want to make a good sun-dried tomato pesto, you should pay attention to the salt content. This is especially important for sauces with cheese.
- 1/2 cup walnuts (or pine nuts)
- 1 cup (8 ounces) sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil
- 3 cloves garlic, sliced
- 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon chili flakes (optional)
- 1 to 2 roasted red pepper quarters, from a jar (about 1/4 cup, optional)
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
How to Make Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto?
1. Roast the walnuts (or any other nut of your choice) in a preheated oven or pan for 6 to 8 minutes, until they're fragrant and a slightly darker color. In this step, you'll extract the valuable oils from the nuts and enhance the flavor of the sun-dried tomato pesto.
2. Gather all the ingredients and start tinkering. Put all the ingredients except the olive oil and half of the sun-dried tomatoes in the food processor and pulse until finely chopped.
Since this is an uncooked, cold appetizer, you can still add some ingredients at this stage by tasting them. If you need less salt or cheese, you can add it right away. Also, if you're preparing a meal that will be cooked in the oven, you can use one or two more cloves of garlic.
3. In this step, you add the rest of the tomatoes and the oil from the container where the dried tomatoes are kept to the robot and enter the pulse. While the motor is running, slowly add the virgin olive oil and stir until your sauce is homogeneous. If you want the sun-dried tomato pesto to have a more toothsome texture, make sure you don't puree it completely.
If you don't have a food processor, you can also use a high-powered blender to make pesto.
Save this handy sun-dried tomato pesto for later, or enjoy it right away.
A Flexible Pesto Recipe
Like any pesto, sun-dried tomato pesto sauce is an extremely flexible recipe. As I mentioned in the setup, you don't necessarily have to use only walnuts. Walnuts and peanuts can be allergens for some people. Therefore, you can use any food that you like and are comfortable with. As an alternative, I prefer to use cashews and almonds.
If you don't have parmesan cheese at home, hard cheeses like pecorino or asiago will also work. Even feta cheese goes well with sun-dried tomato pesto sauce in tough situations.
In addition, some things aren’t in the materials, but that you can add depending on the tastes of the groom. For example, if you're looking for a sweet flavor, you can even add roasted red peppers. If you want, you can also do it with a very small amount of dried basil. The rest is up to your imagination, you can make as many sun-dried tomato pesto sauces as you like.
How to Use Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto?
You can use sun-dried tomato pesto for your favorite pasta or as a base for a pizza. You can combine it with fresh basil and some cheese in a stuffed chicken recipe, and spread garlic bread or bruschetta.
In my opinion, it's entirely up to your imagination how you prepare sun-dried tomato pesto. Since it's mostly tomatoes, it'll be compatible with many recipes that go with tomatoes. You can add to the contents accordingly or leave out some products.
No matter how you use it, you're sure to LOVE how easy, versatile, and delicious this sun-dried tomato pesto is! It’s a phenomenal equalizer and balancer, bringing to dishes that “little something” that might be missing.
How to Store and Freeze Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto?
You can store sun-dried tomato pesto in the freezer for up to three or four months and reuse it for a quick recipe. If you want to store it in the refrigerator, it will keep for about a week.
The main thing to make sure of here is that you use an airtight container. If the container gets air while it is stored in the freezer, your sun-dried tomato pesto may lose its flavor and all your effort would have been for nothing. If it gets air in the refrigerator, it can spoil faster because it is stored with other foods.
Finally, keep it in the freezer or refrigerator because the olive oil in tsun-dreaded tomato pesto sauce has solidified. So make sure it has come to room temperature befouseing. When you open the lid to use the sauce, stir it gently to mix the ingredients once again.
What is Pesto?
Pesto is an Italian sauce. It originated in Genoa, the capital of the Italian province of Liguria. The word pesto derives from the word picture, which means to crush. Basil, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, garlic, olive oil, and salt are used to make a traditional pesto.
Pesto is perhaps the most famous uncooked sauce in the world. Therefore, you may get to know many different types. For example, in the province of Provence, which borders the Italian region of Liguria and is located in southeastern France, there is a sauce called "Pistou". Pistou is quite similar to pesto sauce; it is prepared only with olive oil, basil, and garlic. The reason for the absence of pine nuts in this flavor is that there are no pine nuts in the region to provide them.
However, there are slightly different pesto recipes than the traditional pesto from Genoa,sun-dried tomato pesto! Unlike the Genoa pesto, this pesto recipe uses sun-dried tomatoes as the main ingredient instead of basil. The advantage of this pesto, also known as Sicilian pesto, is that it can be prepared at any time of the year.
Finally, there is a pesto in the world that you will love and even become addicted to. All you need is 5 minutes and a food processor and you are good to go!
