I received Barilla Creamy Genovese Pesto for free from Moms Meet (momsmeet.com) to use and post my honest opinions. Compensation for this post was provided and this page may contain affiliate links.
I don’t know how moms of pro athletes ever survived back to school when their kids were young. My family is just into recreational sports and this September we’ve already been so busy trying to get through all the things every day. Thankfully this year Seattle schools has lunch included for everyone (isn’t that amazing? Not only is school free but lunch is too!) so that is one meal every day I don’t have to make. And I was recently invited to try Barilla Creamy Genovese Pesto with Moms Meet and this helped make an easy three-ingredient meal for dinner that turned out delicious too.
This summer we tried making pesto with some basil we got in our Pike Place Market farm box so I know that my kids really like the taste of pesto on their pasta. Having ready made pesto in a jar is a whole lot easier and helps especially with the cleanup. This Barilla pesto tastes almost like the fresh one we made- apparently the whole process from making it to putting the lid on the jar takes under 3 hours so that probably helps too. And I like that it’s reasonably priced-typically under $3.50 for a jar. Barilla Creamy Genovese Pesto does not need to be heated before using so we can also just stir it right into cooked pasta and it eliminates the need for another sauce pan to clean like when we make other pasta sauces. And my kids are old enough to cook easy meals like pasta on their own so this is an ingredient they could easily use as well. (And they have! They’ve used this pesto again to make a pasta meal on their own.)
For our three-ingredient meal I just added fresh tomatoes from our garden when I mixed the pesto sauce into noodles. Another easy side would be a bag of premade salad (so that would be a total of 4 ingredients and this meal would take literally 20 minutes to make). And for protein I might even add pre-cooked sliced chicken breast either in the pasta or on the side-we sometimes buy this from the refrigerated section at Costco to help make meal preparation easy too.
I like that Barilla Creamy Genovese Pesto is imported from Parma Italy. We went to Italy a few years ago and it was one of our favorite trips. We keep talking about going back to Italy when we can travel again-the pasta and pizza we ate on our trip were phenomenal and food is such a big part of our trips.
Apparently you can also use pesto on sandwiches (which I know we’ve had in restaurants but I’ve never done this at home) and as a marinade for things like chicken or fish. Do you use pesto in your cooking? We really enjoyed this Barilla Creamy Genovese Pesto and we’ll definitely be buying it again.
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)