How Do I Turn 1kg of Basil into Pesto?
I have the opportunity to buy basil for cheap, and wanted to know how I’d turn this into pesto, basically what would be the proportions in grams.
My goal is to refrigerate/freeze them for future use. (If refrigerate option, how long would it last?)
Pesto won’t last very long in the fridge, so plan on freezing most of it. Some sort of freezer safe container, or ice cube trays to easily portion out how much you need is probably a good bet.
I don’t have a go-to pest recipe to share, but there’s a lot of them online, it’s just a matter of scaling them up. It’s basically as simple as throwing the leaves into a food processor with pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, etc.
You’re going to end up with quite a lot of pesto from a whole kg of basil. I’d consider freezing or dehydrating some plain basil to use in other recipes, or making a few other things from it for some variety.
And I’m sure that the economics of this will vary from one region to another, and since you’re using metric units it’s probably a safe bet that you’re not in the US like I am, but I know arround me pine nuts can be pretty pricey. I’d probably be looking at about $40-$50 or so worth of pine nuts for that much pesto, but that may be different where you are, but it’s something to consider. You can usually sub in other cheaper, more readily available nuts for part or all of the pine nuts, I believe walnuts are common, but it will change the flavor a bit.
Even if it’s not necessarily cost effective, self made pesto is definitely worth it. And I would recommend that OP creates different batches, experimenting with ingredients (eg. Adding dried tomatoes, using different nuts, add spinach, etc).
And yeah, it’s probably more practical to just freeze the basil, and then just make ‘fresh’ pesto regularly, especially if you’re still trying to get to grips with getting the recipe just right for your taste, or you want to experiment with ingredients.
Also, probably a useless tip in OPs case, but you can substitute some of the basil with spinach without really affecting the taste, if you want your basil to stretch longer.
~400 Servings
Ingredients -1kg fresh basil leaves, packed (can sub half the basil leaves with baby spinach) -1.4kg freshly grated romano or parmesan-reggiano cheese (about 49 ⅞ ounces) -2.95l extra virgin olive oil -1.24kg pine nuts (can sub chopped walnuts) -74.8 garlic cloves, minced (about 299g) -35g salt, more to taste -8g freshly ground black pepper, more to taste
Directions
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Pulse the basil and pine nuts: Place the basil leaves and pine nuts into the bowl of a food processor and pulse several times.
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Add the garlic and cheese: Add the garlic and Parmesan or Romano cheese and pulse several times more. Scrape down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula.
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Slowly pour in the olive oil: While the food processor is running, slowly add the olive oil in a steady small stream. Adding the olive oil slowly while the processor is running will help it emulsify and help keep the olive oil from separating. Occasionally, stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor.
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Season the pesto sauce: Add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Toss with pasta for a quick sauce, dollop over baked potatoes, or spread onto crackers or toasted slices of bread.
damn that’s a lot of servings. Thanks for all the info with the weights. This will help me a lot
Going to need a very large processor to do it all at once, I’d probably portion everything out and do it over a weekend.
Who’s ops dealer?
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I don’t know about the quantities, recipes may vary but should be broadly available. In my experience, pesto spoils pretty quickly even in the fridge. So I would freeze it in small-ish portions if that is available to you.
An ice cube tray works well to split up the batch into manageable amounts if you’re going to freeze a bunch at once.
Another cool way if you don’t want to use ice trays is placing it in a plastic bag and separating it with folds. Ethan Chlebowski has a good demonstration here.
Giallo Zafferano lists it by weight, and it’s generally a reputable site. I’ll scale it up to 1kg of basil for you, provided that this weight is leaves only (no stems):
- 1kg basil
- 1L olive oil
- 715g Parmesan
- 430g pinoli
- 430g Sardinian pecorino
- 30 cloves = ~2.5 heads of garlic
- 43g salt
Sub the pinoli with walnuts or cooked pinhão/piñón depending on availability and prices. Pecorino can be subbed with a bit more Parm if you want. The garlic should be ideally from a milder variety.
Note: this is a fuckload of pesto. I don’t recommend doing so much; instead you might be better off freezing the basil instead, and making it as you need.
If you have a favourite recipe instead, a metric cup of basil weights 21.3g.
