Mar 03 , 2021

My Pesto Match! Moringa Macadamia Nut Pesto

I found my pesto match! It’s Moringa (Malunggay) Macadamia Nut Pesto!

The very first time I got interested in pesto sauce was when I was trying to figure out what to do with tons of basil growing in my garden (that’s a story for another day). I remember searching the internet, “what to do with lots of basil?” Majority of the search results came back as pesto this and pesto that…different variations and all. 

So, I made a traditional pesto sauce with basil, pine nuts, parmesan cheese, garlic, and olive oil…OMG! I wasted my basil and olive oil. I did not like it and for the life of me, at first, I didn’t know why. I soon discovered that I didn’t like pine nuts…lol! It basically left an after taste that my Filipino palate can’t explain. After a few months, I discovered I had “pine mouth”? It basically means, anything you eat for a whole week tastes like pine nuts, sorry to those that love pine nuts but the taste is not really for me..lol. 

I love the taste of basil so I tried making pesto using different kind of nuts, such as pecans and macadamia nuts and they tastes wonderful. I particularly like macadamia because it’s creamy. I soon found that there are many variations of pesto - traditional vs. non-traditional. 

My family and I soon learned to love pesto, most especially my daughter loves it in her penne pasta.

Recently, one of the pesto recipes I found on a Washington Post article recommended using kale or swiss chard instead of basil. I thought, if that works, Moringa will work very good too. So, my Moringa Macadamia Nut Pesto was born using ingredients that I know my Nanay (mom) uses when making inabraw or dinengdeng (Malunggay soup) like ginger and kinchay (Chinese Parsley). 

We love pesto on anything and everything from broiled salmon, pasta, to sandwich spread. Another good thing about my Moringa Pesto is it’s filled with a multitude of nutrients and medicinal benefits from the Moringa Tree.

Moringa is a superfood and a nutritional powerhouse, see below information about Moringa Tree (source: phys.org. Published 5/10/2019, Genomics uncovers the mystery of the magic drumstick tree - Moringa oleifera)

Here is the recipe. Enjoy!