Sourdough Pesto - Wasted Food Hack
Who doesn't like Pesto...? Super tasty, super versatile, easier than you think to make and great for using up old cheese and bread.
We make veggie and vegan versions when we need to use up breadcrumbs (instead of pine nuts) and cheese ends (instead of parmesan). Then we pop it onto sourdough toast, dilute it to make salad dressings, put it in frittatas and quiches (with peas and feta), mix it with cream cheese and yoghurt to make a dip, add extra breadcrumbs and coat salmon in it and then grill it. And sometimes we even use it on pasta!
Here's the Wasted take on Pesto
Ingredients:
Basil - one or two bunches depending on what you've got/ how much basil you like in the mix
Olive Oil
Lemon
Salt - we use sea salt
Stale Bread (or not so stale bread toasted). A slice worth, torn up into crouton size chunks or made into breadcrumbs already - we like sourdough for added taste.
Garlic - to taste. We would put in a couple of cloves
Handful/ Cup of Finely Grated Cheese - Parmesan or Pecorino great but also any ends you've got of other hard cheeses. We use Canterbury Cheesemakers Ashmore and Cobble. Any hard cheese will do and if it's old and hard even better. Leave this out if you want to keep it vegan.
Method
- Put Basil, garlic, pinch of salt and about 100 ml olive oil into food processor and whizz up. We use a Nutribullet or Magimix depending on how much we're making. Hand held blenders good too!
- Add breadcrumbs and whizz again (hand held blender/ food processor/ Nutribullet). Nutribullet can take bread chunks.
- Add finely grated cheese and mix with spoon or spatula to combine.
-
Add more oil to get right consistency (bearing in mind bread crumbs will suck some up if you're not using it straight away),
- Give it a squeeze of lemon to taste and add extra salt to taste.
-
Add to pasta/ put on top of Pan Tomat/ eat straight from spoon/ drizzle on mozarella and tomato salad, put into a pea frittata... make into a salad dressing.
- Katy Newton