The trial where macadamias moved lipids was the one that displaced saturated fat. This pesto is built to go where butter or a cream sauce went — replacing, not adding.
6 servings15 min
Toast the macadamias 3 minutes in a dry pan over low heat. They are fatty and burn fast, so judge by aroma, not colour.
Wash the spinach and blanch it 30 seconds only, then rinse immediately in cold water.
Squeeze the water out hard with your hands. Do this carelessly and the pesto runs too thin to spread.
Crush the garlic under the flat of a knife. Crushed rather than minced releases its aroma more gently.
Blend the macadamias, spinach, garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper to a coarse paste.
Add the olive oil in stages, pulsing between. Poured all at once it splits.
If you are using cheese, stir it in at the very end. Store in a glass jar with a film of olive oil over the surface, refrigerated.
The point of this pesto is what it replaces.
The two macadamia lipid trials disagreed. The 2008 controlled-feeding trial lowered total and LDL cholesterol significantly; the 2023 free-living trial moved nothing significantly.
The difference was saturated fat. The 2008 diet took saturated fat from 13% down to 7%. The 2023 trial laid macadamias on top of the usual diet.
Hence a pesto. It is built for the place butter held on bread, or a cream sauce held on pasta. Eat it in addition and you recreate the 2023 trial.
Per serving (one sixth):
| Per serving | |
|---|---|
| Macadamias 10 g | 72 kcal, fat 7.6 g (monounsaturated 5.9 g) |
| Olive oil ⅔ tbsp | about 80 kcal |
| Spinach 17 g | folate and vitamin K |
| Total (without cheese) | about 155 kcal |
A tablespoon of butter is around 100 kcal with 7 g of saturated fat. A serving of this pesto carries roughly 1.2 g of saturated fat from the nuts and 1.4 g from the oil. Those numbers only mean something when one is put in place of the other.
Why spinach instead of basil. Basil is expensive and seasonal. Spinach is available year round and brings folate and vitamin K with it. It tastes milder than basil, so lemon juice and garlic draw the outline.
Two reasons to blanch and squeeze. First, raw spinach blended leaves a grassy note; thirty seconds removes it. Second, spinach is over 90% water — unsqueezed, you get soup rather than pesto.
Why only thirty seconds. Spinach's folate and vitamin C are water-soluble and heat-sensitive, and the longer it blanches the more leaves with the water. Lift it the moment the colour brightens.
Why crush the garlic rather than mince it. The more the cells break, the more allicin forms and the sharper it tastes. For a pesto that goes in raw, crushing is the right amount. If raw garlic is too much, blanch the clove for a minute first.
Why add the oil in stages. Poured in at once, the emulsion breaks and the oil floats. Added gradually with short pulses, it thickens and clings.
Why the cheese is optional. Twenty grams of parmesan carries around 300 mg of sodium. Across six servings that is 50 mg each, which is small — but leaving it out makes the pesto fully plant-based and cuts the sodium. Add a little more lemon juice in its place.
Storage. In a glass jar with a thin film of olive oil over the surface, less of it meets the air and it browns more slowly. Four to five days refrigerated, a month frozen. Frozen in an ice cube tray, you can take out one portion at a time.
Macadamias are toxic to dogs. Do not give a dog bread with this pesto on it.
With a tree nut allergy, this recipe is not for you.
Nuts & seeds
Early researchA 2008 controlled-feeding trial lowered total and LDL cholesterol significantly. A 2023 free-living trial moved nothing significantly. The decisive difference between them was not the macadamias but what they displaced.
Vegetables
Moderate evidence"Spinach equals iron" is only half true. The real value sits in folate, vitamin K, and the lutein that accumulates in your eyes.
Vegetables
Moderate evidenceThe evidence for garlic points to a modest drop in blood pressure and cholesterol. The trick is to crush it and wait ten minutes before it hits the heat.