The good news is, there is a way to get it into your freezer so you can use it in your soups, sauces and salad dressings all year long.
Once the frosts come, it’s over.
For basil that is. The leaves turn yellow and brown and the luscious flavor disappears.
You can’t even get good basil in the store here after the frost comes, so it really is a seasonal fresh herb.
The good news is, there is a way to get it into your freezer so you can use it in your soups, sauces and salad dressings all year long.
Here is what I do!
Ahhh, a basket full of basil makes me happy!
Pick all the stems off your basil, stems can give an extra bitter flavor to the pesto.
First blend the garlic into the olive oil
Next blend in your sunflowers seeds. You can do a one minute dry roast of your sunflower seeds in a cast iron skillet for a richer flavor. You don’t have to take the extra time to do that if you don’t want to, either way, the sunflower seeds are super yummy in your pesto. Throw them into your blending device and blend into the olive oil and garlic until they are smooth.
Blend salt and basil into the olive oil, garlic and sunflower seeds
Scoop into ice trays and put in the freezer for a day.
Pop the pesto cubes out of the ice tray and store in a bag or jar. Now they are ready to be put back in the freezer. Pull out a couple cubes whenever you are ready for a big burst of basil.
NOW you can have pesto all winter long. Pop a pesto cube into soup or use it to make salad dressing with.
I love having this amazing herbal condiment around all year long. With all the basil blended into each cube, consider it a full serving of vegetables. Basil is an amazing superfood, full of antioxidants and antimicrobial properties.
The warming, aromatic constituents of basil help to calm the nervous system, settle the stomach, clear the mind, fight off colds…are you convinced yet?
Think of basil as something that warms your body, clears out the bad bugs and sharpens the mind. In the middle of winter when you feel cold, dark and damp, break out your stash of basil pesto and infuse your day with a little warmth and summer sunshine!
However, it doesn’t need to be cold and dark outside to enjoy the delicious flavor of these pesto cubes. Keep them year around in your freezer and you can quickly have a burst of medicine and flavor to add to salad dressings.
Tell me, how much do you love pesto?
Basil Pesto
Ingredients
- ¾ cup olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic
- ¼ cup sun flower seeds
- ½ tsp good quality salt
- As much basil as you can get into your blending device
Notes
How much is sunflower seeds quantity?
Thnaks
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Use 1/4 cup sunflower seeds. I’ll get this updated.
Yum Yum Yum…I like pumpkin seeds in mine, and sometimes sun-dried tomatoes, too…
I am still struggling with this a bit. I must be doing something wrong but even if I use only one garlic clove, its taste overpowers the taste of the herb. I hardly ever use raw garlic so maybe I am missing something?
It is no problem to leave the garlic out. Everyone has a different response to garlic! SOme people add way more garlic and some leave it out. Go ahead and play around wtih the recipe for your taste buds. You don’t have to have the garlic
In your Basil Pesto recipe ingredients, it says 1/4 tsp. sunflower seeds, should that be 1/4 cup or maybe more?
Yes! 1/4 cup!!
we started making pesto this way a few decades ago. We usually do two or three big harvest sessions where the entire house smells like basil, my finger nails turn black from strippinng off the leaves and we fill 5 trays twice. Sometimes we use almonds and sometimes sunflower seeds. Sadly this summer my basil did not do as well so I only made one batch and now as my husband can’t live without it, I had to buy some!