Name: Garden Pesto Sauce
Total time: PLACEHOLDER
Cuisine: ItalianEurope
Ingredients: 1/3 cup slivered almonds , toasted; 2 cups fresh packed basil leaves; 1/2 cup packed fresh parsley; 1 pound plum tomatoes , cored and seeded; 1/4 cup drained capers; 3 anchovy fillets , rinsed and drained; 3 cloves garlic , peeled; 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes; 1/2 cup finely grated Pecorino cheese; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Why This Recipe Works

For this Garden Pesto Sauce recipe, we toasted the almonds in a skillet over medium heat until lightly browned to intensify their flavor. Tasters were initially put off by the idea of anchovies, but they add valuable flavor to the pesto, which didn’t taste the least bit fishy. Traditional pesto contains Parmesan cheese, but we found pecorino cheese has a stronger flavor than Parmesan and was well suited to the big flavors in this assertive pesto. We preferred to buy a chunk of cheese and grate it fresh for the best flavor. Pregrated cheese dried out and lost much of its flavor.

Before You Begin

Pesto works with most pasta shapes--everything from linguine to penne. As with traditional pesto, this one is quite thick, so make sure to reserve some of the pasta cooking water to help thin it out.

Instructions

Pulse almonds in food processor or blender until finely chopped. Add basil, parsley, tomatoes, capers, anchovies, garlic, pepper flakes, and Pecorino and blend until smooth. With machine running, add lemon juice, then add oil in steady stream until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper.

Toss pesto with cooked pasta and reserved pasta cooking water, if necessary, and serve.