Fancy a bit of variety on your plate? Try a red pesto instead of the classic version with basil. Here's how you can make Pesto Rosso yourself!
Tomatoes are simply delicious. You can make so many recipes from them, just enjoy them plain on bread or as a salad. If you look here regularly, you probably know that I grow tomatoes myself, and in large quantities.
One reason is my beloved tomato salad. And another that I would like to make pesto rosso itself. Red pesto is a recipe that is very easy to prepare.
It also makes a wonderful gift or souvenir when you are invited to a barbecue.
So if you are also such a big tomato fan, then it's time to start the project Pesto Rosso itself.
Once you've made it yourself, you won't want to buy it again. Because the DIY version has much more flavor and at the same time it is so easy to make the sauce.
This red pesto is,
- vegetarian,
- lactose-free thanks to long aged Parmesan,
- super easy to make,
- long shelf life in the refrigerator,
- spicy and flexible to use in the kitchen
- and easily doable even for novice cooks.
Mega pesto fan? Try the combination of beet and pistachios!
Table of contents
What ingredients you need for the red pesto recipe
In the first place, of course, are the tomatoes. Here you have two options: Either you take dried tomatoes or pickled dried tomatoes in oil. With fresh tomatoes you can not make a real Pesto Rosso, because they contain too much water.
As soon as the water is removed from them during drying, they develop their full flavor. They become much more intense and taste even better. You can buy both normal dried tomatoes and pickled in the supermarket. If you want to save calories, buy the tomatoes without oil and soak them overnight in water.
Oil is also used later in cooking, but not to this extent.
Small comparison:
- 100 g of pickled tomatoes in oil contain 165 calories.
- 100 g of dried tomatoes without oil contain 93 calories.
Nuts are at least as important as tomatoes. A pesto without nuts is not a pesto. Mostly you take pine nuts, but if you want you can use other nuts. Pine nuts have the great advantage of having only a subtle flavor. Which complements very well with parmesan and tomatoes.
They consist of half fat, they are healthy fats. So do not worry when looking at the calorie table.
If you want to make your own Pesto Rosso, all you need is garlic, olive oil and Parmesan cheese. All this goes together in a food processor and is mixed until the pesto is nice and creamy.
Taste there: Vegan green spelt bolognese with tomatoes!
For which dishes it is worth making Pesto Rosso yourself
Before you make a lot of it now, you should first know with which dishes the pesto harmonizes. But there's one piece of good news: it goes with pretty much everything.
The Pesto Rosso fits perfectly
- with pasta,
- on bread,
- to rice or a rice alternative such as quinoa, millet,
- into a toast,
- on pizza,
- to mozzarella,
- to grilled food,
- in wraps with crunchy vegetables, lettuce and beans
and I could even spoon it out of the jar without garnish. You can also use it to enhance many sauces. I could eat it with absolutely any dish 🙂.
But if you ever feel like it, you'll be quickest with the classic - that is, spaghetti. You don't need a lot of time in the kitchen.
Super helpful is a powerful food processor*. This allows the pesto to be puréed particularly finely and no pieces are left over - just like a real pesto should be.
Make pesto rosso yourself
Ingredients
- 30 g Pine nuts
- 100 g Dried tomatoes in oil
- 1 Garlic clove
- 4 EL Olive oil
- 20 g Parmesan
- 1 TL Chili salt
Anleitung
- Toast the pine nuts in a frying pan. Important: DO NOT use oil. Fry them, turning constantly, until they get a light color.
- Caution: do not leave the pine nuts in the pan, they will burn. Put the pine nuts in a food processor.
- Meanwhile, pour off the oil from the tomatoes. Put it aside, you can use it for many other pasta recipes.
- Chop the tomatoes.
- Peel the garlic and chop it. Put it in the food processor together with the tomatoes.
- Add 4 tablespoons of the oil and blend everything on high speed.
- In the meantime, grate the Parmesan cheese with a kitchen grater. Stir it into the mixture by hand. Season with chili salt. Done!
Nährwerte
How to give your Pesto Rosso a personal touch
You're not quite convinced of the recipe yet? No problem. I'll show you some tasty alternatives and additional spices for even more flavor.
Try it with
- Walnuts instead of pine nuts
- smoked paprika powder
- Almonds instead of pine nuts
- prepare the oil of pickled tomatoes - instead of olive oil,
- a few leaves of basil,
- omitting chili if you don't like it spicy.
Delicious: asparagus pesto with walnuts!
How long is the shelf life of homemade tomato pesto
You can store Pesto Rosso in the refrigerator. If you pour enough olive oil on the pesto so that it is covered with a 1-2 cm layer, then you can store it in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks. If you take some out, just make sure you add oil again.
If you want a longer shelf life, freeze the pesto in ice cube molds. You can then always take out just as much as you need. After thawing, it tastes like fresh, provided it was stored properly in the freezer.
I always pull plastic wrap over the ice cube tray so the pesto doesn't take on the flavor of other foods.
Frozen, I use it for a year until the new tomato crop comes in.
Our conclusion
As you can see, it's not difficult to make a red pesto. If you have all the ingredients at hand, you just have to mix them in the food processor. Making pesto rosso yourself may sound like quite a project at first, but there really isn't much effort involved.
Good luck and enjoy it!
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