Is Pesto Keto?

Short answer
A standard 50g serving of classic basil pesto contains 1.85g of carbohydrates, making it keto-friendly. However, we've found some shop-bought pestos that contain over 6.5g of carbohydrates per serving, so always read the label.

Long answer
There are too many different types of pesto to make broad generalisations about their keto-friendliness. We've compared dozens of pesto sauces and found some with as little as 3% carbohydrates and others with a whopping 13%. Different nuts and cheeses are mainly to blame for the wildly different amounts.

Here, we're going to break down the ingredients of the only basil pesto recipe endorsed by the Pesto Genovese Consortium to see what's happening under the bonnet.

As you can see, this particular recipe has 3.7% carbohydrates, meaning you'll be consuming 1.85g of carbs if you follow our recommended serving size of 50g of pesto per person.

Just like pesto, keto diets vary wildly, but nutritionists advise consuming between 20g and 50g of carbohydrate per day. On this basis, we think it's perfectly fair to consider most pesto sauces keto-friendly.

However, just for fun (you know we're pesto nerds, right?) we set out to design a recipe loosely based on classic basil pesto, but using the lowest carb ingredients we could find. Here's what you would get if you made up a 50g serving of what we think could be the most keto-compliant pesto recipe ever invented.