Basil Uses: Pesto, Pizza, Pistou, Thai Stir-Fries, Drinks and Preserving

Pesto, pizza margherita, a tomato sauce finished with fresh leaves: basil is at its best raw or barely cooked. It has a special affinity with tomatoes, but it travels well beyond Italy, into French omelets and soups, Thai stir-fries and curries, and onto the garnish plate for pho. Even the seeds get used, swelling into a gel in water for drinks, and if you keep basil in oil, that jar belongs in the fridge and needs using within 4 days. For when to add it, how to cut it and how much to use, see cooking with basil.

At a glance

Italian: pesto, pizza and tomato sauce

Pesto. Classic pesto alla genovese is basil, pine nuts, garlic, grated Parmesan and olive oil, and it commonly tops pasta, vegetables, poultry, fish and bread. For scale, Samin Nosrat’s mortar-and-pestle version uses 2 cups (70 grams) of tightly packed basil to dress 1 pound of trofie or spaghetti.¹ Her full recipe and the fixes for bitter pesto are on cooking with basil. See also Genovese basil, the cultivar most pesto recipes call for.

Pizza margherita. It tops tomato and mozzarella with fresh basil leaves, and the pairing is old: an 1853 essay by Emanuele Rocco already describes a pizza topped with basil, mozzarella and tomato.³

Tomato sauces and pasta. Fresh and dried basil do two different jobs here. In America’s Test Kitchen’s tests, dried herbs held up best in recipes that cooked more than 20 minutes with plenty of liquid,⁴ though ATK also lists basil among the herbs that get much weaker once dried.¹¹ Fresh basil, on the other hand, should go in a minute or two before the end of cooking, according to LSU AgCenter.⁵ So put dried basil in a long-simmered sauce early, and add fresh basil at the end or on top. See dried basil vs. fresh and Italian spices.

French: pistou, omelets and soups

In France, the leaves are especially popular in omelets and soups. The best-known example is soupe au pistou. Saveur calls pistou the Provençal cousin of pesto and stirs it into a summer vegetable soup just before serving. Its pistou is 4 cups of packed basil processed with Parmesan, olive oil, salt, garlic and a plum tomato, with no pine nuts, and each bowl gets a dollop on top.² The basil never cooks, and that’s the point.

Southeast Asian: Thai and Vietnamese

Three basils are in play here, and the recipe usually names one. See basil vs. Thai basil and Thai basil vs. holy basil.

• Holy basil in phat kaphrao. Pad kra pao literally means holy basil stir-fry, as Pailin Chongchitnant of Hot Thai Kitchen puts it.¹² In Andy Ricker’s version, the basil gets stirred in just until it wilts and smells very fragrant, 15 seconds or so.⁶ When holy basil isn’t available, Chongchitnant prefers Italian basil as the substitute and says Thai basil works too.¹² See holy basil.
• Thai basil in curries and stir-fries. Sherri Pengjad of Thai Foodie says it’s stirred in right before serving for its licorice-like aroma.¹³ See Thai basil.
• Sweet basil. Sweet basil is an important ingredient of Thai cuisine too, so Western basil isn’t out of place in Thai cooking.
• Pho. In The Pho Cookbook, Andrea Nguyen puts Thai basil (húng quế) on the garnish plate that comes with the soup, to be added raw at the table.⁷

For the bigger picture, see Thai spices.

Drinks

• Basil seed drinks. Sweet basil’s seed is mucilaginous and goes into non-alcoholic drinks.⁸ The seeds of a related basil swell in water into a gelatinous mass that’s often used in sweet cooling drinks.⁹
• Liqueur. Basil leaves are also used to adjust the flavor of chartreuse liqueurs.⁸
• Tea. The basil most often brewed as tea is holy basil, or tulsi, which Britannica says is widely used in Ayurvedic and folk medicine, often as an herbal tea.¹⁴ Basil tea is widely said to help with oral health and diabetes. We found no source that meets our standard for those claims, and we’re not making them.

Preserving basil

Basil vinegar. Colorado State University Extension lists basil among the fresh herbs for flavored vinegar, at 3 to 4 sprigs per pint.¹⁰ Its method is more careful than just steeping leaves in vinegar. Heat the vinegar to just below boiling, use containers sterilized by simmering for a full 10 minutes, and give it at least 10 days for the flavor to develop. The vinegar keeps in a cool, dark place (65°F or below) for up to three months, or in the refrigerator for six to eight months. If you see mold or signs of fermentation, throw it out without tasting it.¹⁰ Use it in vinaigrettes and marinades.

Basil in oil. PROSEA records that in Italy, dried basil leaves are preserved in olive oil, where they turn black but keep their flavor for several months.⁸ Modern home-preservation guidance is stricter. Oregon State University Extension explains that herbs are low-acid foods that can carry Clostridium botulinum, that oil creates an oxygen-free environment, and that even oil seasoned with dried herbs has to be refrigerated and used within 4 days, or frozen.¹⁵ Treat the Italian practice as history, not a method.

Frozen pesto. Oregon State notes that pesto can be frozen in ice cube trays.¹⁵ It’s the easy way to save a summer glut of basil for winter sauces and soups.

Dried basil. Dried basil is less fragrant and more pungent than fresh,¹⁶ so think of it as a different ingredient, not a copy. See how to dry basil, how to store basil and can you freeze basil?

A note on safety

Basil contains estragole. Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) says estragole and related compounds are mutagenic and carcinogenic in animal studies, and names basil-containing pesto among the foods that may contain high amounts.¹⁷ That evidence comes from animal studies and exposure estimates, not from people eating basil. The basil profile has the detail.

Not yet sourced

• A count of how many tomato sauce recipes use basil.
• Any health effect of basil tea from a source that meets our standard.
• A tested amount of basil per quart of tomato sauce.

Related

• Basil, cooking with basil and too much basil
• Genovese basil, Thai basil, holy basil, lemon basil and cinnamon basil
• Basil vs. oregano, basil vs. mint and basil vs. parsley
• Thai basil substitutes