Costco Wholesale v. Trader Joe's: Who has the besto pesto?

The color difference between Trader Joe's prepared pesto (dark green) and Costco Wholesale's pesto is dramatic when used on a smoked wild-salmon frittata just out of the oven, above. Costco's refrigerated product also has more flavor and costs less per ounce.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

After Costco Wholesale unveiled its own prepared basil pesto under the Kirkland Signature house brand, I ended the three-decade practice of making my own at home.

I used a blender recipe from Italian chef Marcella Hazan that calls for 2 full cups of fresh basil leaves -- the key to achieving the flavor and aroma that reminds me so much of spring.

I first tasted pesto with pasta in Nice, on the French Riviera, in the early 1970s, and continued to order it in restaurants in Manhattan and New Jersey, but only that first plate rivaled the flavor of Hazan's version.

I even tweaked her recipe by eliminating the butter, making sure I packed the 2 cups of basil leaves and using less salt, given the sodium in the grated cheese used to make the pesto.

Checkout at Trader Joe's in Paramus is really customer friendly. The employee removes items from your cart, scans them, bags them and puts the bag or bags in your cart -- usually. But Trader Joe's doesn't give customers credit for bringing reusable bags. For that, you'll have to go to ShopRite and Whole Foods Market.

False start

Prepared pesto showed up at Costco Wholesale in Hackensack a few years ago. I tried it once and was disappointed. For one thing, it was too salty.

Then, it was replaced by Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto, which uses 100% Genovese basil from Italy, extra-virgin olive oil; Pecorino Romano, a sheep's milk cheese, also from Italy; and the pine nuts that are used in every Italian recipe.

Trader Joe's or Trader Giotto's Genova Pesto doesn't indicate where its basil comes from, and it uses "olive oil" and walnuts, instead of pine nuts.

Genova is Genoa, the Italian port city where pesto originated.

Trader Giotto's pesto has less total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium and carbohydrates than Costco's pesto.

But it also has less flavor, and when I prepared organic whole-wheat shells with Trader Joe's pesto, I felt the dish needed salt. I added freshly cracked black pepper instead.

Organic whole-wheat shells from Whole Foods Market with Trader Giotto's Genova Pesto.

More fiber, protein

Besides more flavor, Costco's pesto has more fiber and more protein than Trader Joe's pesto, and costs less per ounce. 

Both are refrigerated products, and Costco's version has a "use or freeze by" date clearly visible on the side of the plastic jar. I can't read the date in smaller type on the bottom of the Trader Joe's plastic container, especially against the dark-green pesto.

Trader Giotto's Genova Pesto comes in a 7-ounce container for $2.99 -- probably not enough to dress a pound of its own organic whole-wheat pasta.

You can also use pesto as a sandwich spread, and to garnish frittatas, omelets and other egg dishes; broiled fish, baked sweet potatoes and more.

If you buy three containers of Trader Joe's pesto (21 ounces) for about $9, you'd be an ounce shy of Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto's 22-ounce jar, which costs $7.99.

A need to restrict your salt intake is the only reason I can see for buying Trader Giotto's pesto instead of Costco's version. 

A wedge of frittata with Trader Joe's pesto on top of leftover organic whole-wheat spaghetti with garlic and spinach makes for a filling breakfast.

Fresh, wild-caught Atlantic cod fillets from Costco Wholesale ($7.99 a pound) coated in a Super Spice Mixture, and roasted at 375 degrees for 10 minutes to 15 minutes, depending on their thickness. You also could dispense with the spices, cook the fish with a spritz of fresh lime juice and spoon on pesto when you take the fillets out of the oven. More pesto could go on the organic brown rice with canned kidney beans I prepared in an electric cooker.

Here are a few ways of enjoying pesto without going near pasta

Homemade pesto, above, was made in a blender from a recipe that appears below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I never get tired of pesto -- made with plenty of fragrant basil, pine nuts, garlic and cheese. Simply put, it says summer.

But now that I'm on a diet and cutting down drastically on pasta and bread, I've had to enjoy it in new ways -- folded into a cheese omelet, spooned onto grilled tomatoes or added to hot tomato soup.

I've even used a spoonful on top of two eggs fried sunny side up -- it tastes great eaten with the creamy yolk and egg white. (Blender pesto recipe below.)

I'm out of the smoked wild-caught salmon and sliced, low-fat Swiss cheese I get at Costco Wholesale, but I can see spreading some pesto on a slice of cheese, adding a slice of salmon and rolling them up for a mini-sandwich without bread.

Pesto with wild salmon

I might try it with the fresh wild sockeye salmon that has filled the fish case at Costco this summer, spooning some on top of hot fillets already covered with chopped, fresh basil and other herbs.

Before my diet, I loved to use pesto as a spread with toasted bread, stuffing the sandwich with smoked salmon, sardines or canned fish salad; sliced cheese and tomato, and lettuce or organic spring mix.

And when I was eating pasta, I found pesto went best with penne, shells or bowties -- which caught the thick, dark green mixture -- rather than with spaghetti or linguine.

With the last two, much of the pesto seemed to end up at the bottom of the bowl.

I also found cleaning plates covered with the remains of a pesto dinner difficult to do in a dishwasher. 

The plates don't come out clean, and the olive-oil-based pesto goes all over the place.

I've memorized a blender pesto recipe from Italian kitchen master Marcella Hazan that I've been using for 20 or more years, but reproduce it here from another food blog, Stove Top Reading. 

Here's the link:

Homage to Marcella Hazan

The original recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of softened butter, but I eliminated that many years ago. A little extra olive oil wouldn't be out of order.

I also don't add salt, relying on the salty grated cheese added at the end.

I have basil plants growing in my garden and I've made three portions recently. This recipe gives you a thick sauce grainy with cheese that really coats penne and other small pasta, and is incredible as a sandwich spread.

In Genoa, where pesto originates, it is often made with sliced potatoes that cook with the pasta in boiling water.

BLENDER PESTO

Enough for one pound or 6 servings of pasta

2 cups fresh basil leaves 

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons pine nuts

2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed with a heavy knife handle and peeled

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons freshly grated Roman pecorino cheese

1. Put the pine nuts, garlic cloves, basil and extra-virgin olive oil in the blender and mix at high speed.  Stop from time to time and scrape the ingredients down toward the bottom of the blender cup with a rubber spatula.  

2.  When the ingredients are evenly blended, pour into a bowl and beat in the two grated cheeses by hand. (This is not much work, and it results in more interesting texture and better flavor than you get when you mix in the cheese in the blender.)  If you do not want to use the pesto immediately, put it into a closed container and freeze it before you add the cheese.

3. Before spooning the pesto over the pasta, add to it a tablespoon or so of the hot water in which the pasta has boiled.  Do not heat the pesto before you add it to the pasta.

Editor's note: The best pesto has a great deal of basil in it. I use leaves and stems, and pack a 2-cup measuring cup with it. The more basil, the better. I've also added mint, rosemary, arugula, parsley and other herbs, but think basil makes the best pesto.