GENOESE BASIL PESTO: WHEN IT EXPIRES, HOW TO STORE IT AND HOW TO FREEZE IT
Genoese basil pesto is a fresh sauce, especially ours which is made without preservatives in order to maintain the original flavour of the Genoese basil leaves.
Since it is a very fresh sauce that does not require cooking during preparation and must then be used uncooked - absolutely no sources of heat to avoid ruining the flavour - care must be taken for its preservation and optimal use.
When does Genoese basil pesto expire
In pesto modo21 there are no preservatives and it is not a pasteurised product so the expiry date may seem shorter than the competition you usually find on the shelves. Our pesto is a fresh pesto with a good amount of cheese and just the right amount of salt to achieve a delicate flavour in which the Genoese basil is the star, as we only ever use the fresh leaves.
To give you an idea of the quality of the product you have ordered, the pesto in the modo21 jar is exactly the same as the one we serve every day to our customers at the trattoria Cavour 21 (very popular with our fellow citizens) and whose recipe was handed down to us by Alfonsina Trucco, the oldest champion of Genoese pesto made with a mortar, who won the competition in 2014 at the age of 85.
Our mission has always been to give you a taste experience identical to the one you experienced during your visit to Genoa, a pesto like the one you make at home (of course, then every Genoese family has its own recipe) with the only difference being that the homemade one has a shelf life of a few days while we can easily vacuum the jar - without pasteurising or subjecting it to heat - and therefore we can guarantee a shelf life of between 45 days and a month.
How to store Genoese basil pesto
Absolutely in the fridge, both the one you make at home and ours. When the courier delivers your order, the jars will be packed in an insulated box with gel ice, to maintain the right temperature in the cold chain. Now, if the pesto is left out of the fridge for a few hours, nothing happens at a hygienic level; consider that it's like when you go shopping at the supermarket, so if a fresh product is at room temperature during the journey it's certainly not a tragedy... but then the jars must be kept in the fridge so as not to alter the organoleptic qualities. The unopened jar can be kept at a temperature of between 0°C and +4°C until the expiry date indicated on the label (if you have made it yourself at home, it is best to consume it within a few days).
When you want to cook your pasta with pesto, simply take the jar out of the fridge at the moment of serving and then season raw, avoiding using heat sources because it is a sauce that does not need to be cooked, at the most you can dilute the sauce with a little cooking water to make it creamier. If you have leftover pesto from the one you bought, just put a little oil to cover the surface to prevent it from getting airy and oxidising, then put the jar back in the fridge and use the rest within three days, which is the same home-made process we use here in Genoa.
How to freeze Genoese basil pesto
Of course you can freeze pesto, in fact it is recommended if you want to stock up. Pesto from modo21 is as fresh a product as you could prepare at home and in both cases can be stored in the freezer. It's all very simple, there are no special precautions to be taken: just put the jar in the freezer and go: which by the way is something all the Genoese do, buying a bunch of bunches of basil and pounding (or rather blending) them, so they have fresh pesto for a few months, since the home-made one can be kept in the fridge for a few days at most.
On the other hand, you have to be careful when defrosting it not to heat it up because the risk is to alter the quality and flavour. So when you know you want to use your pesto that you have in the freezer calculate 24 hours before use: take the jar out of the freezer and put it back in the fridge, then the following day, when it's time to dress the pasta, the sauce should have returned to its original consistency and therefore you can use it uncooked; as suggested a few lines above, you can add a little cooking water if you like, but it's absolutely forbidden to heat the pesto genovese even if you want to defrost it more quickly; at most you can choose to keep the jar that was in the freezer, instead of in the fridge, a few hours at room temperature.
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