The Best Basil Pesto Recipe

This basil pesto recipe won the World Pesto Championship in Genoa, Italy — the birthplace of pesto itself — and now you can make it right in your home kitchen! This recipe comes from Italian chef Paolo Laboa. Turns out the secret to the silkiest, greenest, best-tasting pesto is a special technique, plus six classic ingredients, including Genovese basil, good olive oil, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Fifteen minutes, six ingredients, and you will never buy jarred pesto again.

Quick View: Why This Recipe Really Is the Best

• It won the highly-respected World Pesto Championship in Liguria, Italy, where basil pesto was born
• Two cold-temperature chef techniques keep it vivid green and bitterness-free
• Easy to make: six ingredients, 15 minutes, no cooking
• Yields 1 1/4 cups: exactly right for a pound of pasta

Where This Basil Pesto Recipe Comes From

Food and recipe writing is full of hyper-enthusiastic hyperbole, bluster, and puffery. You know what I mean: “Guaranteed the best, most delicious [insert food] ever!” That kind of thing. Except sometimes, it is an actual fact. Sometimes, you really do get the world’s best basil pesto recipe. The one that actually won the award in Italy, at the World Pesto Championships. And now it’s yours.

Winning the World Pesto Championship in the Liguria region of Italy — the birthplace of Genovese basil — is like winning the World Cheesesteak Contest in Philadelphia. (Which, to my knowledge, does not exist, but should.) In other words, if you win it there, you really are the world’s best. Now you can make this silky, fresh, absolutely delicious pesto at home.

This recipe belongs to Italian chef Paolo Laboa, and before that, to his mother. Laboa was running the kitchen at Farina in San Francisco in 2008 when the family recipe took the championship, beating the Italians, in Italy, at the dish Liguria considers its own. He now cooks at Solo Italiano, a rustic Italian restaurant in Portland, Maine, where the pesto pasta is a favorite menu item.

That’s where I first tasted it. What a revelation. The pesto was silkier than any pesto I’d made or ordered, and a soft, fresh green, with none of the flat bitterness that creeps into many versions (psst…it’s too much garlic and bad pine nuts). I went home determined to get the recipe and techniques. And I found it! The answers lie in a combination of some cool — literally — techniques, and the use of the very, very best ingredients: the right basil, the right olive oil, and the right cheeses.

What Is Authentic Basil Pesto?

Basil pesto (pesto Genovese, or pesto alla Genovese) is an uncooked sauce from Genoa, Italy made of fresh basil, pine nuts, garlic, Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino cheeses, and extra-virgin olive oil. The name comes from the Italian pestare, meaning “to pound” or “to crush.” Traditionally, the sauce is worked by hand in a marble mortar with a wooden pestle, which the World Pesto Championship still requires. At home, a blender or food processor does the job beautifully (though perhaps not as classically), and that’s what we use here for the silkiest texture.

Because pesto is never cooked and contains so few ingredients, two things carry the whole dish: the quality of what goes in, and, as Chef Laboa’s technique proves, keeping everything cold along the way.

The Two Techniques That Make This Pesto Different

Most pesto recipes tell you to rinse the basil and blend everything together. This one does two things differently, and they make a difference.

Winning Technique #1: Soak the Basil in Cold Ice Water

Soak the basil leaves, fully submerged, in cold ice water for 10 to 15 minutes before blending. You want to give it a full soak, not a rinse.

The soak does two jobs: 1) cleaning, and 2) preventing oxidization. Basil can be sandy, and an underwater dunk and swish gets all the dirt, grit, and sand out, which will settle to the bottom. More importantly, the cold water chills the leaves, which slows oxidation — the process that turns basil brown and gives most homemade pesto its faint bitterness. Cold basil oxidizes more slowly. Plus, the water still clinging to the leaves when they go into the blender acts as an emulsifier with the olive oil, which is where that silky texture comes from.

Technique #2: Chill the Blender Bowl

Blender motors generate heat, and heat will undo what the cold soak just accomplished. Chef Laboa freezes his blender bowl before making pesto. If you have the freezer space, do that. If you don’t, just fill the blender with ice and cold water, let it sit five minutes, dump it, and blend immediately. The bowl should feel cold to the touch when you start.

These two steps are why this pesto comes out the color it does: vivid, saturated green rather than the drab olive of the jarred stuff.

Basil Pesto Ingredients: What to Use and Why It Matters

As noted above, this recipes uses the very, very best ingredients: the right basil, the right olive oil, and the right cheeses. If you want to go for the gold and make the world’s best basil pesto recipe to the exact specifications, here is where you can source the ingredients:

The Basil

Chef Laboa uses young Genovese basil. Luckily, this is the most common type of basil you see in the store. But he makes sure to use only young, bright green leaves, and not the large, tougher, dark-green leaves. He says that these have a different, less delicate flavor.

You might also like: How to Store Fresh Herbs (Including Basil)

The Pine Nuts (Pignoli)

Traditional pesto Genovese uses Italian or Portuguese pine nuts, which are smaller, creamier, and more buttery than the Chinese-grown pine nuts in most supermarkets. The difference is real. If you want to go all in, Gustiamo and Nuts.com both carry Italian pignoli.

That said: standard pine nuts make a very good pesto. Use what you can get. If you have a nut allergy, raw, unsalted pumpkin seeds make a nice alternative.

The Two Cheeses: Parmesan and Pecorino

This is not the time for sub-par Italian grated cheeses. Quality matters here, and you will taste the difference. You need two cheeses, in equal measure:

Parmigiano-Reggiano: Use the real thing, with the name stamped into the rind, not the domestic stuff labeled “parmesan.” If you can, buy a block and grate it fresh; pre-grated Parmigiano is drier and may not blend in as smoothly.

Pecorino-Toscano: This is the less familiar of the better-known Pecorino-Romano. Toscano a mild, creamy sheep’s milk cheese from Tuscany, softer and gentler than the Pecorino-Romano most Americans know. If you can find it, great. If you can’t find it, Pecorino-Romano (often sold as Locatelli) is the right substitute; just cut the salt in the recipe by about ¼ teaspoon, because Romano is saltier.

The Olive Oil

Use a fruity, mild extra-virgin olive oil. Avoid bold, peppery bottle (though I do love that for dipping bread), which will overwhelm the basil. If you really want to go full A.P. Pesto, Ligurian oil is the traditional choice, but but any good, mild extra-virgin oil will make an excellent pesto.

The Garlic

There is such a small amount of garlic in this that originally, I thought it was a mistake. But it’s exactly the right amount of garlic. The recipe calls for one-third of a small fresh clove — basically a sliver. Raw garlic, like raw onion, has a sharp bite. This hint of garlic adds a complementary flavor without being obnoxious or biting.

How to Make Basil Pesto, Step by Step

The full recipe with amounts is in the card below, but here’s an overview to get your oriented.

• Step 1: Soak the basil. Submerge the basil leaves in a bowl of cold water for 10 to 15 minutes. Reserve a few tablespoons of the soaking water; you may need it to loosen the blend.
• Step 2: Chill the blender. While the basil soaks, fill the blender bowl with ice water and let it sit for 5 minutes. Empty it just before blending.
• Step 3: Blend the basil, pine nuts, garlic, and oil. Then, add the wet basil straight from its soak. Blend until smooth and creamy, adding a bit of water as needed to loosen.
• Step 4: Add the cheeses last. Add the grated Parmigiano and Pecorino, and blend just until incorporated.
• Step 5: Use or store immediately. Toss with pasta right away, or transfer to a container, cover the surface with a thin layer of olive oil to prevent oxidization, and refrigerate.

How Long Will Basil Pesto Last in the Fridge?

This basil pesto recipe will last for up to 3 days in the fridge. But you’ll want to prevent oxidization by covering the pesto with olive oil on top, which forms a seal. Buon appetito.

If you love Italian pesto pasta, you will also love:

• Fettuccini Alfredo e Pepe
• Sheet Pan Pasta Pomodoro
• Zucchini Ribbon Salad With Mint and Parmesan