Pesto Sauce Can Be Good For You

Pesto sauce is traditionally thought of as a sauce for pasta, but this tasty treat has many more uses and is full of flavorful ingredients that are good for you! It can be used to spice up soups and is a great sauce to pour over chicken or fish. You can put it on your sandwiches and even add it to a salad. It can be used as a dip or even to dip bread in before dinner!

Perhaps the oldest sauce in existence, it is thought to be descended from garlic sauces used in ancient Rome. It comes from the region of Liguria and is named after the method used to combine the ingredients - grinding or pestatura - or crushing with a mortar (mortaio) and pestle (pestello).

How To Make Pesto Sauce

There's plenty of variations on how to make this flavorful sauce but the ingredients are basically the same - basil, garlic, olive oil and parmesan cheese. Different recipes combine the ingredients in different amounts.

According to custom, they should be mashed together by hand to release the aroma of the ingredients. To make pesto sauce, Crush the basil leaves with a mortar and pestle and add the garlic and parmesan until they are ground into a fine paste. Moisten with the olive oil. Pesto is best made with basil that is freshly picked! Some recipes add pine nuts, walnuts and/or parsley so if you are allergic to nuts make sure you know what is in your pesto before eating it.

Pesto sauce can be good for you!

It contains olive oil which has been shown to be good for your cardiovascular health. Use extra virgin olive oil in your recipe and you’ll benefit from the antioxidants in the vitamin e as well. Olive oil helps promote heart health by controlling bad cholesterol and raising good cholesterol. It is also thought to decrease the risk of colon cancer and help with ulcers. Garlic is an herb with very powerful medicinal properties - especially when it is eaten as prepared for pesto. When garlic is crushed and eaten raw, it becomes even more potent. Garlic is has anti inflammatory, anti fungal and anti bacterial properties and is reputed to help lower cholesterol and blood pressure as well as fighting off infections, preventing blood clots, regulating blood sugar. Even basil has benefits! It's an antispasmodic and helps the body to digest food.