How Many Calories Are There In Pesto?

Short answer
The number of calories in pesto varies wildly between brands, but having looked under the bonnet of over 100 pesto sauces for sale in the UK, we’ve concluded that on average, shop-bought pestos contain 372 calories per 100g.

This means that a tablespoon (15g) of pesto contains around 56 calories, while our recommended serving size of 50g per person contains around 186 calories.

Long answer
Two of the most expensive ingredients in all pesto recipes are nuts and cheese, both of which are very high in calories. Their price means they are the first things that budget brands look to reduce (or even remove altogether) to cut costs. This goes some way to explaining why, broadly speaking, premium brands tend to be at the higher end of the calorie spectrum while budget brands appear nearer the bottom.

This generalisation is not always the case, though. With oil being relatively cheap (even despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sending the cost of cooking oils soaring), many cheap supermarket pestos bulk out their sauces with a large amount of oil. This explains why a regular complaint about budget pestos is that they are excessively oily.

Daylesford Organic tops our list of high-calorie pestos with a staggering 654 calories per 100g. Looking at the ingredient list, you can see that they don't skimp on any of the expensive, high-calorie ingredients that budget pestos simply cannot afford to include.

At the other end of the spectrum is Sainsbury's "Light Green Pesto." Water is the sauce's second biggest ingredient, and when you spot that its pine nut content is just 1%, it's easy to see where their calorie savings have been made.

So, which is better? Well, if your waistline is your biggest concern, then clearly the low-calorie options are right for you. Next comes affordability. With some jars of high calorie, premium pestos selling for up to £7.50 and some budget pestos retailing for just 55p, the staggering price difference is even more extreme than the difference in calories.

On many occasions, though, it comes down to taste and quality. In our enviable research (yes, we really have tasted every single one of the pestos shown below), we conclude that those at the higher end of the calorie spectrum make for a much more enjoyable meal.

* These figures are accurate as of January 22, 2023.

Based on our average of 372 calories per 100g, we’ve worked out how many calories you will be consuming based on popular weight measurements.

Pesto calories per tablespoon

Because it is highly likely you will be paring your pesto with pasta, we've researched the calories in pasta and explained why, counterintuitively, pasta made with flour and water can be more calorific than pasta made with flour and eggs.