Easy Pecan Pesto Recipe (4 Ingredients)

a blend of basil, garlic, and nuts in a food processor.

5 from 5 votes

Easy Pecan Pesto Recipe (4 Ingredients)

My mom's simple pecan pesto, which is a dairy-free pesto recipe perfect for low histamine pastas, pizzas, savory tarts, and meats!

Prep Time20

Cook Time10

Total Time30

Course: Dinner

Cuisine: Italian

Servings: Cup

Calories: 1305.57kcal

Author: Max

Ingredients

1 Cup fresh organic basil leaves gently packed (about 4-5 fully-grown plants from a garden or farmer's market; make sure they're 100% organically-grown)
2 cloves of organic garlic (4g, medium-sized cloves; the more you use, the stronger the garlic flavor)
1 ½ to 2 Tablespoons organic olive oil I highly recommend using olive oil, but deodorized organic coconut or sesame oil might taste okay, if you can't have olives
¼ cup pecans see notes
*Optional: ⅛ cup chopped organic sprouted pili nuts (salted; these are not a common or cheap nut to buy, but they are one of the fattiest nuts in existence & I swear they taste exactly like parmesan cheese, except they're dairy-free and unaged; alternately you can add a quarter cup of parmesan, if tolerated)
*sea salt to taste if not using a salty cheese

Instructions

NOTE: *Before you start, keep in mind that if you're not using parmesan, for the purposes of this recipe, the pili nuts and sea salt are sort of like garnishes. You should only prepare proportionally enough of them for the amount of pesto you plan to make at that moment. This recipe will make about 6 patties (I generally use 3 of those on two medium chicken breasts, for reference).
Wash your basil, and then dry it gently and pluck off each leaf. Place them into your mixing bowl, trying to get as little of the stems as possible. If it adds up to a little more or less basil, simply add a little more or less of the garlic & oil.
Peel your garlic cloves; you can chop them into a few pieces each, if your food processor is weak.
Pack the basil, garlic, and pecans into the food processor, and blend it until a chunky paste, about 30 seconds. Then pour in the oil slowly (or all at once if that's not possible), until the pecan pesto has smoothed out.
Assuming you're not using all of this pesto at once, this is where the parchment paper comes in. Pull off a piece that's about 10 inches long, wide enough for 6 pesto patties, and lay it onto a flat surface.
Plop 6 even patties onto the bottom third of the sheet, and then fold the top on the patties and press lightly. Transfer these directly into the freezer for about an hour, placing them on a flat surface with a lightweight flat object on top of them. This will keep the parchment paper sticking to either side, allowing for easy storage.
After an hour or two, take the patties out of the open freezer and make sure they're solidly frozen, or even better, you can leave them overnight to harden.
Once fully-frozen, peel apart the wax paper and stack the patties in a freezer-safe container for storage. From a lifetime of experience, they'll stay good for several years in the freezer, though they'll brown quite a bit after the first month. When you're preparing your pesto for serving later on, a single patty calls for 10-12 salted pili nuts, if you didn't use parmesan. Toast the pili nuts before serving, for an extra crunch, and roughly chop them to top your main dish. Add salt & pepper as desired, and enjoy.

Notes

TYPES OF BASIL: Thai basil or holy basil won't work in this recipe, so make sure you're buying or growing "normal" basil, also called Italian, Genovese, or Sweet Basil (Ocimum basilicum).

SUBSTITUTING NUTS: while I really recommend pili nuts & pecans, you could theoretically use any other nuts, like pine nuts or macadamias, maybe even almonds. Just remember to toast & finely chop!

PREPARING THE PECANS: soaked & dried, to get rid of the mold that often grows on pecans, soak them overnight and then dry them out in the oven at 150°F/65°C for about an hour, or until crispy but not toasted.

MAKING IT SAUCIER: When I was a kid, my Mom would reconstitute "freezer pesto" with some skim milk, but if you want a runnier sauce, I recommend thinning it out with a touch of olive oil or coconut milk (though almost any plain-tasting fat would work).

SALTER & PEPPER: I always prepare this recipe without salt so that you can salt the dish you're making, without having to try and calculate exactly how much salt is in the pesto. I always grind a bit of black pepper and pass the salt shaker over a few times, keeping it nearby in case I didn't add enough, but I know not everyone tolerates black pepper.

Nutrition