Healthy Homemade Pesto

Store-bought pesto often contain unnecessary ingredients and nasties such as excessive amounts of sodium, sugar and preservatives. Some preservatives I cannot even pronounce the name of. I have always been told if there is an ingredient in a store-bought item that I cannot pronounce the name of or if I do not know what it is, then I should not be buying that item. I usually follow this advice as I do not like feeding my body harmful ingredients.

As part of the F45 8 Week Challenge, there are some ingredients that are difficult to obtain in stores/supermarkets. Yesterday’s lunch called for natural pesto with no added sugar. This is not easily obtainable from supermarkets in Melbourne. Hence, I decided to make my own pesto.

I have made pesto many times and each time, I make it slightly differently and hence, it tastes slightly different. This time, I decided to use feta cheese instead of the traditional parmesan cheese in my pesto as well as a combination of pine nuts and almonds for the nuts. I hope you enjoy this simple recipe 🙂

Makes approximately 220g bottle of pesto

For those of you counting calories/macronutrients, please use the table below as a guide

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup pine nuts, raw;
• 1/4 cup almonds, raw;
• 50g greek feta cheese;
• 1 bunch of basil, leaves picked;
• 3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil;
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed;
• 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup of water;

Method

1. Place the pine nuts, almonds, basil and garlic in a food processor and blend;

   

2. Add the feta cheese and extra virgin olive oil into the food processor and continue to blend;

   

3. Add 1/3 cup of water to the mixture in the food processor and continue to blend until the pesto comes to your preferred consistency. You can add more water if the consistency of the pesto is too thick and not to your liking. Personally, I used 1/2 cup of water as I prefer my pesto a little more runny. *I did not add any salt as I felt the feta cheese had enough salt;

   

4. Enjoy your pesto on meat/fish/vegetables, as a dip or make some delicious pesto pasta 🙂