Rocket pesto: sharper, cheaper and ready in fifteen minutes
Basil can be expensive and temperamental; rocket is available all year, usually costs less and gives a pesto with a bold, peppery character. The rule that decides both colour and flavour is the same as for classic pesto: blend briefly and cold. The blades heat the leaves, and warm greens oxidise — vivid green quickly turns muddy brown.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Nuts 6 min
- Blending 8 min
- Jars 6 min
Step by step
0 / 5 doneToast the nuts and cool them
Toast the walnuts in a dry pan 4 minutes, shaking, until they smell nutty. Tip them onto a cold plate and cool them completely. Warm nuts dropped into a blender heat the rocket and the pesto browns before it even reaches the jar.
Ingredients: 150 g rocket · 80 g walnuts · 80 g parmesan · 2 cloves garlic · 180 ml olive oil · ½ pcs lemon, juice · ¾ tsp salt · ½ tsp pepper
Four minutes, then cooled completelyChill the blender bowl
Put the bowl and blade in the freezer for 10 minutes. Cold tools are the simplest way to limit how much the leaves heat up while blending — and temperature is what decides whether the pesto stays vivid.
TipThe same trick works for every green sauce: chimichurri, salsa verde, basil pesto. It is always the same principle — chlorophyll cannot tolerate heat.
Blend everything but the oil
Put the rocket, nuts, garlic, parmesan, salt, pepper and lemon juice in the bowl. Blend in pulses, short bursts, about 30 seconds in total. You want a coarse, uneven paste, not a smooth purée.
Ingredients: 150 g rocket · 80 g walnuts · 80 g parmesan · 2 cloves garlic · 180 ml olive oil · ½ pcs lemon, juice · ¾ tsp salt · ½ tsp pepper
Pulses, thirty seconds, a coarse pastePour the oil in with the blade running
With the machine running, pour the oil in a thin stream through the opening in the lid, for no more than a minute. It emulsifies and the pesto turns smooth and glossy. Taste: rocket varies in heat, so adjust salt and lemon to suit.
A thin stream; the pesto turns glossyJar it and seal with oil
Spoon into scalded jars, pressing down to release air pockets. Cover the surface with a 5 mm layer of oil — it shuts out air and preserves the colour. Seal and keep in the fridge.
Ingredients: 3 tbsp olive oil
Five millimetres of oil shuts out the air
Before you start
How long it keeps
Up to a week in the fridge under its layer of oil; freeze it for longer, as raw garlic in oil carries a botulism risk. After each spoonful, level the surface and top up the oil — pesto spoils exactly where it meets air.
Frozen in cubes
Spoon it into an ice cube tray and freeze. Two cubes are a sauce portion for one, straight from the freezer into hot pasta. It keeps six months.
Beyond pasta
On roast potatoes, as a sauce for grilled chicken, in a sandwich with mozzarella and tomato, stirred into yogurt as a dip. A spoonful in tomato soup transforms it.
Without parmesan
For a vegan version, two tablespoons of nutritional yeast and an extra pinch of salt. The texture is similar and the flavour still distinctly cheesy and nutty.