Basil Pesto Pasta Recipe - Traditional Italian Recipe! (2024)

FAQs

Is pesto traditionally Italian? ›

PESTO ORIGINATED

Pesto is a sauce originating in Genoa, located in Italy's northern region. It originated around the 16th century and traditionally consists of crushed garlic, basil, and pine nuts blended with Parmesan cheese and olive oil.

Italian Tradition

Pesto is the perfect sauce to enjoy with a dish of trofie (the traditional Ligurian short pasta), lasagna, potato gnocchi or as a topping for a bowl of minestrone. It can be mixed into tomato sauce to enhance the flavor of pasta dishes or used with fish fillets to make them more appetizing.

Today, pesto Genovese is the condiment that best represents Genovese and Ligurian cuisine, and this is why the most famous pesto in Genoa, produced by the Rossi family since 1947, is distributed throughout Italy and in over 15 countries worldwide, sold to restaurants, pizzerias, delicatessens and stores of all sizes, ...

It has a lot in common with the Ligurian pesto—it's rich with nuts, basil, olive oil, garlic, and cheese. But the nuts are almonds, not pine nuts, and there's an additional ingredient that transforms the sauce into something even lighter and more refreshing: tomatoes.

'Genoese pesto') is a paste made of crushed garlic, pine nuts, salt, basil leaves, grated cheese such as Parmesan or pecorino sardo, and olive oil. It originated in the Italian city of Genoa, and is used to dress pasta and sometimes soups.

The iconic quartet of carbonara, cacio e pepe, amatriciana and gricia make up the four most famous and beloved Roman pasta dishes. Find out more about them with our handy guide.

Spaghetti Bolognese

It is commonly served with parmesan cheese. The dish is one of Italy's most popular exports, and thought to have originated in Imola, a northern Italian city west of Bologna some time around the late 1800s - when the first reference to the dish's ragu sauce was recorded.

This fresh and fragrant pasta sauce is served uncooked, so choose a pasta shape that won't overwhelm it. Similar to oil-based sauces, pesto is served best with longer cuts of pasta, like the corkscrew shape of Fusilli. Pesto works best with Bucatini, Capellini, thinner Spaghettini, and Fettuccine.

While traditional pesto alla Genovese typically includes non-vegetarian cheeses (including Parmigiano Reggiano and Pecorino Sardo), pesto by nature invites interpretation - feel free to substitute the traditional cheese for a vegetarian alternative.

Its scarcity, plus the fact that the plants are picked roots, soil, and all to ensure that only juvenile leaves make it into pesto, makes it extraordinarily expensive and something that only premium, artisan pesto makers can justify using.

What is the difference between pesto Genovese and pesto Siciliano? ›

What makes it different from Pesto Alla Genovese is that it uses almonds as opposed to pine nuts, and gets finished with fresh tomatoes, which are bountiful in the south. In Sicily, they use the Pachino tomato - which are small, sweet, and similar to cherry tomatoes.

Pesto is commonly used on pasta, traditionally with mandilli de sæa ('silk handkerchiefs' in the Genoese dialect), trofie or trenette. Potatoes and string beans are also traditionally added to the dish, boiled in the same pot in which the pasta has been cooked.

Originating from Genoa, the capital city of Liguria Italy, Pesto alla Genovese is made with fresh basil, garlic, pine nuts, salt, olive oil and hard cheese, traditionally Pecorino and Parmesan.

The word pesto comes from the Italian 'pestare', meaning 'to pound, or crush', or indeed to 'pestle', and is of course also cognate to our noun 'pestle' (Italian: 'pestello', Latin: 'pistillum') – so there is absolutely no need to ever again get confused about which is the pestle and which is the mortar (Italian: ' ...

Pesto Genovese is what most think of when you say the word “pesto,” and the recipe was first documented in Giovanni Battista Ratto's 1863 book, La Cuciniera Genovese. Since then, the Genovese have fought hard to make their city the undisputed birthplace of pesto.

In ancient Rome, a pesto-like paste known as 'moretum' was eaten. Moretum was made by combining crushed cheese, garlic and herbs together. The main ingredient of modern pesto, basil, likely originated from India, and was first domesticated there. Depending on where it is made, the ingredients of pesto can vary.

Pesto is one of the sauces of the Italian culinary tradition typical of the Liguria region, a jagged arch on the sea, cradle of aromatic herbs. The original pesto is a cold sauce made from basil and cheese, enriched with pine nuts, garlic and extra virgin olive oil.

Some time later, with the creation of various modifications of Italian pizza, a variant containing pesto instead of the traditional tomato sauce was also created. To enjoy your favourite flavour in your own home, order an al pesto pizza or a Neapolitan pizza delivery.