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Dried porcini mushroom pesto

Dried Porcini Mushroom Pesto

You've definitely never tried a pesto like this! The base of this sauce is dried porcini mushrooms. The flavor comes out so rich and layered that it's hard to tell right away what's in it. There's nothing complicated about making it — you just gather good ingredients and blend it all together.

Ropotushka

Recipe author

Composition / ingredients

Servings:

Porcini mushrooms

Sun-dried tomatoes

Walnuts

Ricotta

150

Hard cheese

100

Parsley

Olive oil

Garlic

Salt

Pepper (black, hot, chili, or whatever you like)

Translation table of volumetric measures

Nutrients and energy value of the composition of the recipe

By weight of the composition:

Proteins 27 % 12 g

Fats 62 % 28 g

Carbohydrates 11 % 5 g

328 kcal

GI: 100 / 0 / 0

Cooking method

Cooking time: 30 min

Step 1:

How do you make pesto from dried porcini mushrooms? Gather all the ingredients. Instead of parsley, you can use any greens — basil, arugula, spinach, or cilantro. You can swap the walnuts for pine nuts, cashews, or almonds. That said, basil and pine nuts are closest to classic Italian style.
Step 2:

Soak the mushrooms and the sun-dried tomatoes separately in room-temperature water for about 2 hours.
Step 3:

By then the mushrooms should be soft and slightly plumped up. Drain and rinse them thoroughly under running water.
Step 4:

Then cut the mushrooms into small cubes.
Step 5:

Peel and rinse the garlic and cut the clove in half lengthwise. Heat the oil in a skillet. Fry the garlic over medium heat for 2 minutes, stirring.
Step 6:

Take out the garlic — you won't need it anymore. Add the chopped mushrooms to the skillet and fry over medium heat for 3 minutes. Once all the excess water has cooked off, take the pan off the heat and let it cool. Fry the mushrooms carefully and don't over-dry them, or the flavor of the sauce will suffer.
Step 7:

Drain the tomatoes and put them in a blender or a deep bowl where the ingredients will be easy to blend. Draining rinses off the excess oil and seasoning.
Step 8:

Add the walnuts and parsley to the tomatoes. First remove any wilted leaves and tough stems from the parsley, then rinse it, dry it, and pick off the leaves.
Step 9:

Add the cooled mushrooms, along with their oil, to the blender too.
Step 10:

Blend everything to a smooth paste.
Step 11:

Then add the ricotta and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Step 12:

Mix until smooth.
Step 13:

Grate the hard cheese on the finest grater and add it to the sauce.
Step 14:

Mix everything well. If the pesto is too thick, add a little olive oil and stir it in.

If you plan to toss the sauce with pasta, make it looser; if you'll use it as a spread on bread, make it thicker.
Use an oil with a high smoke point for frying. Every oil is only healthy up to a certain temperature — its smoke point — beyond which it starts to burn and forms harmful compounds, including carcinogens. Unrefined oils, with few exceptions, have a low smoke point: they contain many unfiltered organic particles that quickly begin to burn. Refined oils stand up to heat better and have a higher smoke point. If you're cooking in the oven, in a skillet, or on the grill, make sure you use an oil with a high smoke point. The most common high-smoke-point choices are refined sunflower, olive, and grapeseed oils.