This kale pesto with almonds is a quick and easy sauce that is great on pasta, breads, and sandwiches or mixed into vegetable dishes.
Real talk: is there anything tastier than pesto? If there is, I haven’t found it yet. I remember when I first discovered it, back when Philip and I were first married. A friend at work was talking about it (her girls called pasta with pesto “green noodles”) and I decided that I needed to try it. Armed with my trusty Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and a super cheap mini food processor that I bought from Target (seriously, some piece of plastic broke off of it every time I used it), I whipped up some amazing spinach pesto. Philip and I developed a serious pesto addiction.
We don’t eat pesto quite as much these days as we did way back then (almost 16 years ago!) but I still love a good pesto. And homemade is always, always better than store-bought. And why not? It takes about 10 minutes to make, aside from the toasting of the nuts.
Pesto is traditionally made with basil, but it takes a LOT of basil so I like to bulk it up with spinach. However, I had some kale that I bought at Earth Fare a couple of weeks ago and I really needed to use it up. Voilà: kale pesto. I have to say, it was fantastic. I made it with almonds instead of pine nuts, mostly because I didn’t have pine nuts but also because I recently read about something called pine mouth and I’m a little bit paranoid. It might be a minute before I am brave enough to eat pine nuts again.
Kale pesto isn’t just for pasta, you guys. I mean, of course it’s perfect on pasta. It’s also amazing slathered on a sandwich (hello, rotisserie chicken & ciabatta???) or just on a hot baguette, mixed with cream cheese to dip a cracker into, stirred into a vegetable side dish, or even whisked into a vinaigrette. No matter what, kale pesto is absolutely fabulous!
Shared on Meal Plan Monday on Southern Plate!
Mary
Yield: 3/4 cup pesto
10 minPrep Time:
10 minTotal Time:
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Ingredients
- 2 tightly packed cups of torn kale
- 1 cup torn basil
- 1/2 cup toasted almonds
- 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- salt and ground black pepper
Instructions
- Pulse the kale, basil, almonds, and Parmesan cheese in a food processor until finely ground. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. With the food processor running, pour the olive oil very slowly through the food processor chute. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to a week.
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