This easy homemade pesto recipe comes together quickly in about 15 minutes with a few simple ingredients you probably already have on hand! It’s delicious when poured onto fresh warm pasta, and it also makes a tasty creamy salad dressing! While it tastes a lot like traditional Italian pesto, it doesn’t have pine nuts or dairy, making it a perfect pesto sauce to make for family and friends or church gatherings.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Comes together quickly – This pesto sauce comes together in only a few minutes, making it a perfect recipe for weekday dinners!
Uses common ingredients – Unlike most pesto recipes, this recipe doesn’t use pine nuts which are expensive and hard to find! Although I do love traditional pesto with pine nuts, this recipe is just as delicious without them – plus it’s nut free!
Makes a versatile sauce – The first time I made this pesto, I actually served it chilled pasta. It was delicious! The next day, I used it as a salad dressing – it had so much flavor and added a yummy herbal flavor! My new favorite way of serving it is by mixing it into warm pasta (I love it with linguine, but any would be great!).
Ingredients
Mayonnaise – I like to make my own homemade mayonnaise with light olive oil, an egg, and a splash of apple cider vinegar! This is what makes the pesto creamy. It is a good source of protein and healthy fats, too!
Fresh spinach – Fresh spinach is what adds the bulk amount of green to this pesto! Although I’ve never tried frozen spinach, I’m sure you could use it, you would just need to remove all excess water from it first!
Fresh basil – Fresh basil is SO flavorful and adds so much freshness to anything. If you grow your own basil, you know it can sometimes produce faster than you can use it! This is a great way to use up this summery herb.
Fresh garlic cloves – Garlic adds a richer flavor to this pesto sauce. I love it. If you aren’t a garlic person at all, you could remove it, but I can’t promise it will taste as good!
Lemon juice – Freshly squeezed lemon juice lightens up this pesto sauce and certainly adds an essence of summer! I recommend you taste test as you go – I usually end up adding an extra squeeze of juice just because it makes this pesto extra fresh!
Salt – Salt is essential! My favorite salt is Redmond Real Salt.
How to Make Homemade Pesto Sauce
Step 1 – Gather ingredients. Heat up pot or pan on stove medium heat. Mince garlic cloves. Add olive oil to pot then toss in garlic. Pour in a few tablespoons of water to your pot or pan, add spinach and basil, and allow leaves to wilt. Stir leaves around until wilted, making sure they don’t stick to the pan (you can add more water if needed). This should only take 2-3 minutes.
Step 2 – Once all leaves are wilted, turn off heat. Transfer contents into a glass jar if using immersion blender, or into your blender if using that instead. Be sure to avoid adding any of the excess water into the jar or blender, as this could make your sauce watery!
Step 3 – Add one cup of mayonnaise to the green mix. Then add lemon juice. Now blend with the immersion blender until everything is creamy! Or use blender until blended smooth. The sauce will be thin, but creamy looking and quite frothy! Add salt and more lemon juice until desired taste is found!
Step 4 – Add to warm pasta and serve hot! Or serve on pasta chilled as the base for a pasta salad. We also love using this after it has cooled down as a salad dressing!
If you make this recipe and enjoy it, please give it 5 stars! Tag me on Instagram @thehappeningsofhome!
Easy Homemade Pesto
(Dairy/Nut Free!)
Course: DinnerCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy4
servings15
minutes15
minutesThis easy homemade pesto sauce comes together quickly in about 15 minutes with a few simple ingredients you probably already have on hand! It’s delicious when poured onto fresh warm pasta, and it also makes a tasty creamy salad dressing! This pesto tastes like traditional Italian pesto, but it doesn’t have pine nuts or dairy, making it a perfect pesto sauce to make for family and friends or church gatherings.
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Ingredients
1 cup mayonnaise (I make my own homemade)
4 cups fresh spinach
1 cup fresh basil (if you have less, that is okay)
4 fresh garlic cloves
Juice from half a lemon (or to taste)
Salt, to taste
- Special Tools and Equipment
Immersion blender or regular blender
Directions
- Heat up stainless steel pot or pan on stove medium heat.
- Mince garlic cloves or press cloves through garlic press.
- Add olive oil to pot then toss in garlic.
- Pour in a few tablespoons of water to your pot or pan, add spinach and basil, and allow leaves to wilt. You can speed this up by putting on the lid if your pan has one! Otherwise, just stir the leaves around until they wilt, making sure they don’t stick to the pan (you can add more water if needed, though you don’t want too much water in this next step). This should only take 2-3 minutes.
- Once all leaves are wilted, turn off heat. Transfer contents into a glass jar if using immersion blender, or into your blender if using that instead. Be sure to avoid adding any of the excess water into the jar or blender, as this could make your sauce watery!
- Add one cup of mayonnaise to the green mix. Then add lemon juice. Now blend with the immersion blender until everything is creamy! Or use blender until blended smooth. The sauce will be thin, but creamy looking and quite frothy! Add salt and more lemon juice until desired taste is found!
- Add to warm pasta and serve hot! Or serve on pasta chilled as the base for a pasta salad. We also love using this after it has cooled down as a salad dressing!
Notes
- When I make this recipe, I don’t really measure things that strictly, and it always turns out yummy! 🙂 Keep in mind, the more basil you add, the more pesto-y it will be. But if you don’t have much basil on hand, you can still make this recipe!
