This brain-worthy walnut basil pesto is delicious on practically anything! Smear it on crackers for a snack or douse your favorite steamed veggies with this omega-3 and polyphenol rich pesto!
Ingredients
3 cups fresh basil leaves, packed (about 3 bunches)
1/2 c raw walnuts pieces (use 3/4 c if you are using whole walnuts)
3-4 medium cloves garlic
1 cup olive oil (extra virgin)
Juice of 1 small lemon
1/4 tsp salt, more to taste
black pepper, to taste
*optional: 1 oz or less Parmesan (from Italy or Southern France)
- Throw everything in a food processor or blender and pulse until desired texture. (If you have an immersion blender that is also an option.) Taste and add more salt if the flavors aren’t hitting you enough. If you’re averse to the raw garlic taste, try lightly sauteing the garlic first. Other option would be to roast a whole head of garlic and use double the amount of cloves (8 cloves or the whole head of garlic). The roasted garlic is mellower and warmer in flavor.
- Enjoy cold or heat it up in a non-stick frying pan on low heat (so as not to burn the olive oil).
*Makes about 2 cups.
Pesto will keep fresh in the fridge for 4-5 days or in the freezer for a few month. If the container is not air-tight it might start to look a bit darker over time but still is good to eat!
Why this is brainfood….
The best of the ingredients are:
- basil: antioxidants & flavinoids (I mean c’mon! It’s basically a leafy green! But don’t take my word for it…)
- walnuts: high in omega-3s (aka ALA)
- olive oil: high in polyphenols (and there’s a crap-ton in this recipe!)
- garlic: fights cancer!
That’s the low-down, since this is the first recipe I’m getting around to posting on here. If you want a more in-depth, researched perspective on the ingredients, visit the Brainfood Kitchen main page to see the recommended reading 🙂
The rest of the Story
We’re on our last week in South America, in La Serena, Chile. And compared to how we’ve been eating, this has been one of the better spots for being vegan/vegetarian/whatever your restrictions are. (Buenos Aires was NOT our favorite…)
We’re just in an Airbnb here, and like most Airbnbs, it’s a toss up on what the kitchen is equipped with.
But we lucked out! There’s good pots and pans, a blender (thank the Lord), a citrus juicer, and an immersion blender. We were a bit skeptical on the immersion blender because…why? If you have a blender, it’s doing the same thing.
However, we are now convinced we have to have one ? Mostly because this one has a handy container for sticking the immersion blender in, and you can effectively scrape the sides with an immersion blender. The model we appear to have is pretty simple and resembles this immersion blender here.
The massive amount of extra virgin olive oil and walnuts give this pesto an almost buttery flavor. It doesn’t tasty nutty at all actually! It was perfect on top of some polenta & steamed veggies as the main flavor-complementor.
It was so good, that it’s already gone. Ugh! And this is the second batch we made this week!
Oh well, guess we’ll just have to make more (*drools*).
Part of the problem was we just bought some gluten-free rice crackers because the semi-keto diet we’re trying out has limited our intake of crusty breads, chips, crackers, etc.
Finally found some rice crackers at the main grocery store in town and thoroughly enjoyed the crunch of the crackers with the flavorful pesto and slice of avocado (because why not just add a perfectly ripe avocado to it!??).
Other uses for this pesto could be:
- spread on a sandwich or bagel
- top off eggs
- sauce on pasta
- tossed with steamed veggies and served over rice
- pizza (instead of a red sauce, or just as a topping)
What will you be using it for!?