Pea Pesto With Mint: An Easy Recipe

For those of you who love Genovese pesto made with fresh basil and Parmesan cheese, here's a springtime twist on this famous Italian sauce. The pea pesto with mint is the perfect way to celebrate this spring vegetable, and is just as easy to prepare as the original basil recipe.

Ingredients

Here are the ingredients needed to make pea pesto with mint for 4 people:

100 g fresh peas, preferably
a bunch of mint
1 clove of garlic
30 g pine nuts or blanched almonds
half a teaspoon of fleur de sel
30 g grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons of olive oil
salt and pepper

Preparation of the ingredients

For this recipe of pea pesto with mint, you can use fresh peas (tastier) or frozen peas (quicker to prepare, by skipping the shelling step).

1- Cook the peas in boiling salted water until tender. Drain and let cool.

2- Peel the garlic clove and remove its germ if necessary.

3- Thin out the mint sprigs. To make this pesto, you will need about 20 mint leaves.

4- Wash the mint leaves and dry them carefully in paper towels before using.

Preparation of the pesto

Once all the ingredients are ready, the preparation of this pea and mint pesto is very quick.

1- Place the mint leaves, the garlic clove and half a teaspoon of fleur de sel in the bowl of your blender. Start blending these three ingredients.

2- Add the cooked peas, pine nuts (or almonds), parmesan and 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

3- Blend again until you get a smooth and creamy consistency, like in the picture below.

Copyright: Audrey Vautherot

4- Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

5- Serve this pea and mint pesto with gnocchi or pasta with stripes that hold the sauce well.