Move over avocado… pesto toast is about to become your new favorite brunch! This recipe uses a vibrant, freshly made kale pesto, with cherry tomato and feta topping… but the possibilities are endless! This is ideal for when you’ve got a batch of homemade pesto to use up, but you can make pesto toast with jarred pesto too!
Pesto toast! Let’s discuss.
We all love a good avocado toast, and that has served as a gateway for so many trendy toast toppers I have lost count. Tomato toast? Ricotta toast? I love it all, and love not relying on having a ripe, decent avocado to hand. Much as we love her, we know Avo is one flaky fruit.
Today, we are going in the direction of pesto toast which is the perfect toast topper because it’s super flavorful, super spreadable, moist enough to liven up dry toast, and works well with several additional toppers you may wish to add.
What Pesto to Use on Toast
This recipe specifically uses kale pesto, using a cavolo nero pesto recipe I shared recently. Cavolo nero = lacinato kale, black kale, tuscan kale, dinosaur kale, have I covered all the names? I gather that the name is very regionally dependent so… yeah. That stuff.
If the recipe provided doesn’t float your boat, I have loads of pesto inspo right here for you to peruse, but I’d say something like an avocado pesto or a sundried tomato pesto would be lovely here too.
I am partial to something homemade and chunky, rather than the jarred stuff, so if you’re not making your own, consider a deli pesto – they tend to have the thicker texture. But you will still have every success with jarred, if that’s what you fancy, it will just melt in more and create a thinner layer.
Building Your Pesto Toast:
If this is something you’re making because you have some nice bread and some leftover pesto, you can of course stop there. Spread pesto on toast and eat it. Good stuff.
But building it up a little more is fun, and the possibilities are endless.
In this recipe, I add some cherry tomatoes and crumbled feta, because they are a dream team. The result is a more brunch / lunch.
But there’s other ways to go about this, some of which would pull it more towards being a breakfast option.
Other Topping Ideas:
- Poached eggs
- Sliced mozzarella and tomato, caprese style
- Sliced avocado, sometimes you just can’t get away from her
- Olives and sundried tomatoes
- Grilled or fried halloumi cheese
- Sauteed or roasted mushrooms
If you’re laying out a brunch spread, you could even just put a bowl of pesto in the middle of the table and a bunch of different toppings for everyone to DIY their pesto toasts.
I hope you enjoy this concept as much as we do, and feel free to leave your own suggestions in the comments – I’d love to hear from you!
Pesto Toast
Ingredients
- 2 slices sourdough bread
- 8 cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 Tbsp feta cheese, crumbled
- 3 Tbsp pesto
For the Kale Pesto (if making it from scratch) – this will make a huge batch so you'll have left overs!
- 200 g (7 oz) cavolo nero or curly kale, stems removed and leaves roughly torn or chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 4 Tbsp pine nuts
- 50 g (0.5 cups) pecorino or parmesan*, grated or roughly chopped cubed
- 1 bunch basil
- Salt, to taste
- 100 ml (0.40 cups) extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
- If you're making the kale pesto, blend all of the ingredients in a food processor. (You may want to start with only half of the kale / cavolo nero, if it won't all fit in at once, and add the remaining amount once the rest is blended.)
- Toast the sourdough slices.
- Spread with a generous smear of pesto and top with the cherry tomatoes and then the feta crumbles.
- Serve.