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A visit to my local garden nursery yesterday inspired me to make homemade basil pesto sauce. The herbs were so fresh and fragrant, it was hard to pass up the opportunity to use them in my recipes. Pesto is one of those Italian sauces that are so easy to make and has such a flavorful and delicious taste. With just a few ingredients and a few minutes, you can have an all-natural traditional Ligurian pasta with pesto meal that everyone will love. Most pesto sauces include pine nuts, but I actually prefer the taste without pine nuts, so the recipe below is nut-free.

All you need for a fresh pesto sauce is fresh basil, parmesan or pecorino cheese, good quality extra virgin olive oil, garlic, salt, ground black pepper, and a food processor.

Ingredients

3 cups fresh basil leaves
4 oz grated pecorino or parmesan cheese
2 1/2 oz extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
a pinch of salt
course black pepper to taste

Directions

Add the fresh basil, 3 oz of parmesan cheese (leave 1 oz of the parmesan cheese to top your pasta later), olive oil, garlic and salt to a food processor and mix until all the ingredients turn into an oozy paste. Place the pesto paste over cooked pasta (hot) still in the pan and mix it all together. Serve, add the extra 1 oz of parmesan and black pepper on top.