I love giving away delicious homemade culinary gifts! This idea in particular is a lovely savory treat for the winter season – when you don’t have fresh basil in your garden but still crave for pesto! They are incredibly easy to make and don’t take a lot of time, so it’s a go to staple when time is of the essence. Also, pesto is no exact science, so you can get creative with the ingredients and season everything to taste.

This time, I made two types of winter pestos: A dried porcini pesto and a Pesto Rosso with sun-dried tomatoes and chili. The recipes are for about 3 x 250ml glasses each:

Pesto Rosso

Ingredients:
50 g pine nuts
2 glass (ca. 400 ml) of dried tomatoes in oil
1 small red chili
2 cloves of garlic
10 tbsp olive oil
100 g Parmesan cheese (grated)
Salt and pepper

Preparation:
Shortly purée the pine nuts in the food processor and set aside. Remove the seeds from the chillies and chop coarsely. Drain the dried tomatoes (if the quality of the pickled tomatoes is good, I keep the oil and use it instead of the extra olive oil in the recipe). Purée the tomatoes, chili and olive oil in a food processor or blender. It depends on what texture you like in your pesto, I tried not to purée the tomatoes to much, otherwise it would be more like a paste. Peel the garlic clove and it into the mixture.
Mix the tomato mixture, the pine nuts and the parmesan cheese, season to taste.
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Dried Porcini Pesto

Ingredients:
50 g pine nuts
50 g dried porcini mushrooms (soaked in water)
1 small clove of garlic (peeled and chopped)
3 shallots (peeled and chopped)
10 tbsp olive oil
1 bunch parsley (chopped)
80 g grated Parmesan cheese)
salt and pepper

Preparation:
Shortly purée the pine nuts in the food processor and set aside.
Remove the porcini from the water (they should be soft to the touch) and chop them coarsely. Add the shallots, the garlic clove, the parsley and the oil and pureé in a food processor. Mix the mixture with the parmesan cheese and season to taste.

And you’re done! Just pour the two pesto mixtures into clean glasses and store them in the fridge. They can be kept there for at least 3-4 weeks. Make sure to always cover the pesto with a bit of oil, this will help to keep it fresh longer.

Tip: If you want to extend the shelf life, leave out the Parmesan cheese. Without the Parmesan cheese, the pesto will last much longer and the cheese can easily be added during the preparation of each dish. If you still have too much pesto, you can also portion and freeze it and take it out and defrost as needed.