Basil Pesto (no garlic)
A garlic-free basil pesto — basil, toasted pine nuts, fresh parmesan and lemon, blended cold. Unsalted base first so the baby and kids eat before any salt goes in. No pot beyond toasting the nuts and boiling the pasta.
No pot needed · ~15 min · serves 5 · weekend fresh Garlic-free — basil, pine nuts, parmesan, lemon. Salt comes last, so the little ones eat first.
Ingredients
- 100 g basil leaves, picked, washed and dried well
- 70 g pine nuts (or walnuts)
- 70 g parmesan, grated fresh from the block
- 150 ml good extra-virgin olive oil
- ½ lemon, zested and juiced
- salt + pepper — at the end
- 500–600 g pasta to serve (trofie, fusilli or spaghetti)
- optional: 1 head broccoli + 3 carrots to steam alongside
Method — by station
The pesto is a cold blend; the only heat is toasting the nuts and boiling the pasta. Build the base unsalted, then layer up baby → kids → adults.
🍳 On the hob — dry pan (~4 min)
- Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan over low–medium heat ~3–4 min, shaking often, until just golden. Pull them early — they burn in seconds. Cool.
🥣 In a bowl / blender — the unsalted base
- Blitz the basil, toasted nuts and the lemon zest + juice, pouring in the olive oil, to a loose paste. Work quickly and don’t over-blend — heat from the motor dulls the green.
🍝 On the hob — pasta (~10 min)
- Boil the pasta in unsalted water (the pesto and cheese carry the flavour). Before draining, save a mug of the cooking water.
🍱 To assemble — baby, then kids, then adults
- Baby: toss a little pasta with a spoon of the plain base + a drop of oil (no parmesan, no salt).
- Kids: stir the parmesan through the rest of the base; toss the kids’ pasta in it (still no added salt).
- Adults: salt + pepper the remaining pesto, toss with the rest of the pasta, and loosen with a splash of the reserved water.
- (optional) Steam the broccoli and carrots alongside — steam oven: Dampf, 100 °C, 100 % humidity (no preheat needed; set it going from cold), broccoli ~8 min, carrots a little longer.
Notes
- Keep it green: press a film of oil on top before it sits. For colour that lasts days, blanch the basil 10 sec then plunge into ice water and dry before blending.
- Swaps: walnuts for pine nuts; a handful of spinach stretches the basil further.
- Use the glut: double or triple the base and freeze in an ice-cube tray — drop a cube into pasta, white fish or soup through the week.
- Storage: under an oil film in a jar, fridge ~5 days.
- Lunchbox: pesto dulls if blasted with heat — stir it through warm pasta rather than reheating hard, and loosen with a splash of water.