Culinary Musings

Freezing Pesto is easy!

Fall is pesto season in our house. My basil plants have reached their peak and its an endless battle of nipping off the tops so they won’t flower before I can make pesto. I usually dedicate part of a weekend for pesto making.

I have several pesto recipes that I adore. One of my favorite is my friend Larisa’s Easy Basil Walnut Pesto recipe. I’m such a fan of pesto that I want to enjoy it year round. Fortunately pesto can be frozen and later thawed for enjoyment.

Once the pesto is made, I put small amounts of pesto into a plastic ice tray – I usually use the miniature ice cube size trays although the regular size will work too.

I usually spray the plastic try lightly with Pam and then put a spoonful or so of the pesto. I freeze it and after a couple of hours I move the frozen cubes of pesto into a heavy duty plastic zip bag. I try to remove all the extra air out of the bag (my husband even does the human vacuum cleaner act to suck out the air), zip lock the bag closed and put the bag back in the freezer.

Then when you get the craving for pesto, you can grab a few cubes from the freezer depending on how many people you’re feeding. Often you only need a small amount of pesto, so freezing in smaller sized cubes makes it much more convenient.

Pesto freezes well and you can’t beat the convenience of the small mini cubes of pesto. Enjoy.

For more pesto recipes, check out our article on how to make pesto.