Spinach Pesto

This Spinach Pesto is vibrant and versatile and so delicious. Pair it with pasta, chicken, fish, or grilled veggies for a healthy and flavorful meal that's so quick and easy.

It's well-established that I don't like vegetables. I'm extremely averse to even a hint of bitterness, and the presence of unknown crunchiness or weird textures in my food makes me unreasonably edgy. I know I should just get over it, but I haven't managed it yet. I'm like a child who has to have veggies hidden in their food. I feel bad about it, but only a little.

I do generally love a good pasta sauce, though, and the vibrant flavor of pesto packs a serious punch. The concentrated flavor of basil along with deeply savoury Parmesan cheese and punchy garlic makes this a delightful classic. So when you give me pesto that has hidden green, leafy vegetables that you can't even really taste, I'm all about it.

What makes this Spinach Pesto so awesome?

This Spinach Pesto is so bright and delicious. I can't stop eating it. I also love that it's super simple to make. Simply blitz together a few ingredients in a food processor and call it a day. It's all done in about five minutes, and you'll bring so much flavor to whatever you want to use it on. It's like summer in a jar. Mix it with everything.

And in case everything is a bit overwhelming, I suggest adding this to pasta, obviously. You could also top that pasta with some grilled chicken, use it to flavor fish, slather it over some grilled halloumi. I bet it would even be good with some fried tofu. Anything that could benefit from a punch of bright and verdent flavor would be great for this sauce. Go wild.

Magical Properties of Basil

Basil is best known for prosperity magick. It's bright green leaves basically scream abundance. Here are some of the correspondences for this common kitchen herb:

• Planet - Mars
• Element - fire
• Zodiac - Scorpio
• Deities - Erzulie, krishna, Lakshmi, Vishnu
• Magical properties - healing, revitalising, love, initiation, business, fidelity, happiness, harmony, home, money

Source: The Hearth Witch's Compendium by Anna Franklin

To learn more about the magical properties of the ingredients in this recipe, check the Kitchen Magick page.

Ingredients

Here's everything you'll need to make this sauce. The full details are in the recipe card below.

• Spinach leaves - fresh baby spinach is ideal for this, frozen spinach will be a bit tough
• Fresh basil
• Pine nuts - toasted if you want to be fancy
• Parmesan cheese - I wouldn't use your most expensive cheese here as the basil is the predominant flavor
• Olive oil - extra virgin is awesome
• Garlic - use fresh garlic cloves if you have the as the food processor will do all the tedious chopping for you
• Lemon - you'll need the zest and juice
• Salt and pepper

Tips for making Spinach Pesto

Making this sauce is super simple. Add all of your ingredients except the olive oil to your food processor, and give it a good blitz to create a paste. You may need to scrape down the sides once or twice to get everything well processed. Then with the machine running, stream in the olive oil to create a thick sauce. Give it a taste to see if it needs more salt or maybe more lemon juice. If it's still a bit on the thick side, add a bit more olive oil. Just trust your cook's intuition.

Then you can use it straight away or store it in an air tight container until you're ready to use it. Unless you're going to put it in a sterile jar, I'd use it within 3 days to make sure it stays fresh.

I never thought I'd love a green dish so much, but I'm ready to put this Spinach Pesto on all my food. It's that awesome.

Looking for more awesome pasta sauce recipes? Try this Spicy Alfredo Sauce or some tangy Lemon Cream Sauce.

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Recipe slightly adapted from All Recipes.