Summary

Ingredients

• 2 handfuls fresh basil
• 4 tomato (s)
• 1 clove garlic, pressed
• 100 g cheese (pecorino), rated
• 100 ml olive oil, virgin
• 50 ml olive oil (chilli olive oil)
• possibly chili powder
• 40 g pine nuts
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon paprika powder, hot
• 1 dash balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoon parmesan (Grana Padano), grated
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste

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Instructions

1. One comment in advance - the original recipe for pesto rosso actually includes dried tomatoes and not fresh tomatoes, but I just like my variant better - I hope it can convince some of you too.
2. Put the basil, garlic cloves, pecorino, pine nuts, olive oil and chilli olive oil in a tall mixing bowl. Alternatively, instead of the chilli olive oil, you can simply increase the virgin olive oil by the appropriate amount and add 1 teaspoon of chilli powder.
3. Cut the tomatoes into pieces and fry them in a little olive oil with about 1 teaspoon salt in a large pan without a lid for about 2 minutes until the tomatoes have softened. Then put it in a sieve and squeeze out a lot of liquid with the wooden spoon, so that a kind of pulp remains.
4. Put the resulting pulp together with a dash of balsamic vinegar and 1 tablespoon of tomato paste (from the tube) in the mixing bowl with the other ingredients. Puree everything with the hand blender. If the resulting mixture is still too runny, add enough Parmesan until the desired consistency is achieved when pureing.
5. Then season to taste with salt and paprika powder. The pesto rosso is ready! It tastes especially good with pasta, but also as a dip or sauce with meat or as a spread.
6. Instead of the tomatoes, which are necessary for the pesto rosso, you can also add any other ingredients to the base mixture depending on your taste and willingness to experiment. B. avocados, seared peppers, seared peppers, grated walnuts or peanuts or even seared pumpkin pieces (pumpkin pesto is one of our favorites with pasta in the pumpkin season!).
7. By the way: For the classic pesto verde you just have to leave out the tomatoes and instead add a little more basil and other fresh herbs such as parsley and oregano to the basic recipe. The smoothness of the different pesto variants can be changed and adjusted as desired by means of the amount of olive oil and pecorino / parmesan.
8. This gives you a multitude of delicious pesto variations with which you can surprise your loved ones again and again. There are of course no limits to your own creativity, so just try your own pesto variants - you really can`t go wrong!