Spinach Pesto

So this recipe came from the Cooking Light Spinach Pesto Pasta with Shrimp recipe. I’m breaking them in two though because while you make the pesto as part of that recipe, you don’t use the majority of it there, only six tablespoons, so for ease of tracking on Weight Watchers, I broke this out.

Now I made a few changes from that original recipe. In it, Cooking Light used walnuts but I had no walnuts in the house, so I used almonds. Also they blanched the spinach and basil first and put them in an ice bath and dried them. I couldn’t be bothered with that, so I just threw it all in the food processor and moved on.  Anyway, here’s the recipe. It makes over 1 cup of pesto, about 18 tablespoons and comes in at 1 smart point per tablespoon.

Ingredients

• 2C packed baby spinach
• 1C packed basil leaves
• 1/2 C flat leaf parsley
• 1/2 C chopped plum tomatoes
• 6T toasted almonds (toast them in a non-stick pan over a medium flame until fragrant)
• 2t fresh lemon juice
• 1/2t kosher salt
• 1/2t freshly ground pepper
• 1.5 ounces freshly grated parmesan cheese (grate it by hand, don’t use a food processor because in a food processor, the consistency seems off)
• 1 garlic clove chopped
• 2T extra virgin olive oil (use a good one)

Directions

Put everything except oil in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Slowly stream in oil until mixed in. You can store what you don’t use in the fridge for a week or freeze it. Some people use ice cube trays to freeze left over pesto. When you store it though, don’t be surprised by some discoloration on the top layer as the pesto comes in contact with air.

You can see my version of of the Spinach Pesto Pasta with Shrimp here.