Roasted Tomato Pesto

Taking advantage of jarred readymade ingredients, roasted tomato pesto is a fast no-cook sauce for pasta and a spread for bread or crackers.

A love of pesto runs in my family, but we’re not Italian. My mom introduced me to pesto when I was a kid, and I’ve been hooked ever since.

I always have a jar of it in my fridge.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Now my 4-year-old’s favorite way to eat his beloved pasta is with basil pesto. I couldn’t be more proud. 

Like most little ones, he can be picky, but he won’t turn down a carbohydrate.

He’s a big fan of garlic and Parmesan, which explains why he requests pesto on his penne, rigatoni and pretty much every noodle shape.

Sometimes my son will even ask for an extra dollop of pesto to eat it with a spoon.

With the season change, I’ve had the urge to switch up my pesto game, so I made roasted tomato pesto.

Basil is summer to me. It just doesn’t feel right to eat it year round.

Parsley walnut pesto is another variation that gets me through the calendar year.

I realize tomatoes are a summer thing like basil, but I used the marinated roasted tomatoes you find at the olive bar or in jars with the antipasti in the grocery.

They have a ton of flavor, and you don’t have to do anything to them!

How To Make Roasted Tomato Pesto

I could have probably just pureed these tomatoes to turn them into a sauce, but I wanted to make them an official pesto.

That meant adding garlic, Parmesan and walnuts.

I folded the pesto into pasta, spread it on toast, mixed it into eggs and found myself devouring it with a spoon just like my son.

The next time I need to make tomato sauce, I may decide to do this pesto instead because it’s so fast and very tasty!

A handy no-cook recipe.

And we always can use more of them, right?

Roasted Tomato Pesto

• Author: Paige Adams
• Prep Time: 5 minutes
• Cook Time: –
• Total Time: 5 minutes
• Yield: 1–1/4 cups 1x

Taking advantage of jarred readymade ingredients, roasted tomato pesto is a fast no-cook sauce for pasta and a spread for bread or crackers.

Ingredients

• 1 garlic clove, peeled
• 1 cup oven roasted tomatoes (from the olive bar or jarred)
• 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 ounce grated Parmesan
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/3 cup olive oil

Instructions

1. Pulse the garlic in the bowl of a food processor until it is minced. Add the tomatoes, walnuts, Parmesan, salt and pepper. Puree the mixture and while the motor is running, drizzle the olive oil through the feeder tube until the pesto is fully combined.
2. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.