Feta Pesto

Lately I’ve been craving pesto. I don’t even really like pesto, but I’ve been craving it. Normally pesto is just too much basil for me, so I tend to steer clear. In this time of craving however, I dug up the recipe I created for feta pesto.


For me, it’s a really good balance of basil, and feta. I LOVE feta… it also has a slight nuttiness from the toasted walnuts. I imagine that I was simply out of pine nuts, and that’s why I used walnuts (plus, it’s also cheaper).

Feta Pesto:

1 cup fresh basil
½ cup walnuts (toasted)
1 garlic clove
6 oz reduced fat feta cheese
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1/3-1/2 cup water

Place walnuts, basil, and garlic clove into a food processor and pulse, until combined. Add the feta and olive oil and process the mixture until it resembles paste (yum, right?).

To the paste, add 1/3 cup of water, and process until creamy. If you want a thick pesto, you can stop here. If you want a more sauce like pesto, continue to add small amounts of water and process until you get the consistency that you’re looking for.

So, now you have some fairly healthy for you feta pesto (notice that there’s just 2 Tbsp. of olive oil, and that reduced feta is called for), and there’s quite a lot of it too.

I like to put it over spaghetti squash. Sometimes if I’m feeling particularly feisty, I’ll add in other veggies (zucchini, roasted tomatoes, maybe even some spinach for some extra green).

I think this weekend I’m going to whip up a batch!!

Enjoy.

p.s. If you're freaked out about toasting nuts, it's really not a big deal... I do it in a small pan (unoiled, since the nuts have enough oil that they won't stick).  Just move the pan around (or get a spatula and stir the nuts), until you start to smell them.  At that point they're done... remove them from the heat, pour them out of the pan (they will burn if you don't).