Most of you would probably know that pesto sauce is made from basil leaves, pine nuts, olive oil and Pecorino cheese with other seasoning, well, at least those are the basic ingredients right?

I planned to make my own version since I did not have pine nuts and Pecorino cheese is expensive here and thought of sharing with you guys my recipe. I personally think it is one of the most simple and quickest recipe, lol.

First, I picked out two packets of basil leaves into a mixing bowl.

Tada~~~I used 150gm of baked cashew nuts instead of pine nuts. You can also use the salted ones and if you plan to use unbaked ones, please toast them a little before you add them into the mixing bowl.

My substitute for the Pecorino cheese~~~the PARMESAN cheese! Just because it is cheaper for me to get this compare to the former, lol. TvT I took 10 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese into the mixing bowl.

I then added in about 1 teaspoons of salt & pepper each, 2 teaspoons of chopped garlic and 1 cup of olive oil into the mixing bowl.

Using a hand blender, I blended everything into a rough but smooth paste. I adjusted the seasoning as I went along. if you have a blender machine you can use that as well. Instead of mixing everything into a mixing bowl, just put everything inside the blender and blend until you are satisfy with the texture. Once I am done, I removed the pesto sauce and kept it inside a container and chilled it. By the way, this recipe is quite a lot so you can adjust the recipe according to your preference.

Pesto sauce can be used for many things. You can use it as a base for pizzas, mixing it with cream can become sauce for deep-fried chicken chop (I'm not kidding, it is delicious...), and in my case, I'm using it to make vegetarian pasta~

I do realised some vegetarian do not eat onions and garlics, and some do not eat cheese as well, but if you are fine with the ingredients inside the pesto sauce you can try to make one for yourself too!

What I did was just sauteed a little garlic and onion, added mushrooms, tomatoes and bell peppers into the pan, seasoned with just a pinch of salt and pepper (if your pesto sauce is flavourful enough you do not need to add any more seasoning into the pan.) and then added in a big spoonful of the pesto sauce I made earlier. Lastly, I added in 160gm of cooked linguine pasta and mixed them all together. I finished the pasta with a pinch of Parmesan cheese and rocket salad on top of the pasta.

I hope this post is helpful and do let me know if any of you tried this recipe and how did you find it in the comment box below~~