Mint Pesto: Our favorite type of pesto & Storing in Souper cubes
Who knew? You could make pesto from mint. My girls have been loving pesto…pesto on bread or pesto mixed in hummus as a snack not to mention our Chicken Pesto Pasta made with a pesto cream sauce over homemade gluten-free noodles.
Earlier this summer I thought I was going to have to grow bushels of basil just so we could freeze enough pesto to make it through the year. Until I discovered that I can make pesto out of many different “greens” from the garden. We have tried carrot-top pesto, which is another family favorite, and we also tried beet top pesto, not a family favorite as it had a very strong flavor. I found a recipe for Homestead Pesto from Jill Winger’s Prairie Homestead Cookbook with calls for greens like Kale or Swiss Chard. I am anxious for my fall garden to start producing so I can try this pesto out.
This summer I planted lots of different types of mint (peppermint, spearmint, ginger mint and even lemon balm) down my stair terrace for two different reasons. One being we love fresh mint tea during the summer and two it is an area of the yard that is not fenced in and I was trying to find something the elk would not like to eat. (so far so good on this front). One day I realized I may have over-done-it on the number of mint plants for our tea consumption so I headed over to Pinterest to see what all I could make using mint and low and behold you can make mint pesto (which my girls now deem their favorite because of the pleasant, mild flavor).
This mint pesto is so easy to make. Just add one cup of basil leaves, two cups of mint leaves (no stems), ½ cup of olive oil, ½ parmesan cheese, ½ cup of almonds (can substitute walnuts, pecans, or pine nuts), juice of one lemon, 2 cloves of minced garlic, and ½ tsp. Sea salt to a high powered blender or food processor. Pulse for 1 minute until all the ingredients are well blended.
I used to store my pesto in small half pint canning jars in the freezer but now I’m so excited to say I will be using my new Souper Cubes. I love the 1 cup Souper Cubes because they allow me to fill them either to the 1 cup line or just the ½ cup line for even smaller portions of pesto. Having my pesto stored in the freezer this way is definitely going to save precious freezer space but keep my freezer more organized as well.
