10 Best Pesto Sauces | UK Nutritionist Reviewed

This traditional Genovese pesto is made to an authentic traditional Italian recipe, features a high basil content, and is often cited as the closest to homemade pesto that you can buy in a jar. 

The success of this recipe is attested to by its popularity among those in the food business – it's regularly found on the shelves of gourmet stores and delis, and it's used and recommended by a bunch of top UK chefs. It's incredibly reasonably priced, too. It really is the perfect pesto, and that's why this sauce is our number one.

It's made by Waitrose, but this pesto is made with high quality, authentic ingredients to rival any top Italian brand, and it contains no bulking agents. Its delicious taste has earned it tons of highly-rated reviews.

Its only drawbacks are in its lack of versatility: it's made with raw milk, meaning it's not suitable for pregnant women, children, or anyone with a low resistance to infection. For everyone else, however, this is a truly delicious, authentic-tasting option.

The delicious, authentic taste of this sauce has made Sacla's classic basil pesto the UK's top-selling pesto sauce. As well as this classic basil sauce, they also offer options in a variety of different flavours including avversion made with vegetarian cheese. 

You may be disappointed to find that some of the less conventional ingredients, such as sunflower seed oil and cashew nuts, are higher in content than the olive oil and pine nuts, but these traditional ingredients are still present, and the huge popularity of this pesto cannot be denied. 

It's a vegan sauce, but in no way does this pesto compromise on flavour – it boasts one of the highest basil contents available, and every one of its ingredients is certified organic. The salt and sugar contents are both low, too. 

Its wholesome recipe means this sauce is suitable for most diets, and the wealth of positive reviews are testament to its delicious taste. Its shelf life is a little on the short side, but even this is a sign of quality, and is only due to the lack of unwanted preservatives. 

De Cecco is a high-quality, trusted Italian brand, and it's clear that their aim with this sauce is to create as authentic a pesto as possible. In fact, its recipe seeks to replicate homemade pesto, and it uses only 100% Italian basil, produced in Liguria. 

Unfortunately, its use of such fresh ingredients means that this sauce has a limited shelf life of only three days. It's also a little bit pricey at the moment due to stock shortages, but if you can splash out, the taste is totally worth it. 

For some people, the word 'vegan' equals 'lack of taste', but that's certainly not the case with this vegan basil pesto from Zest. It's completely free from artificial ingredients, resulting in a fresh-tasting sauce. 

Delicious, it may be, but traditional it is not, and in order to achieve its vegan status, this sauce has had to substitute some staple pesto sauce ingredients with ones that are a little less conventional. For vegans or allergy-sufferers, however, this is an excellent choice. 

The organic green pesto from Biona uses a simple list of only a few ingredients, meaning the key flavours of this sauce – basil, extra virgin olive oil, and pine kernels – are really allowed to shine through.

This minimalist recipe may be a little too plain for some, but it does means that this sauce is suitable for almost all diets, and that every ingredient is completely organic. 

Its plain, unadorned packaging suggests that this pesto sauce has nothing to hide, and that's certainly the case. It uses basil that is grown and handpicked without pesticides, and, as it's a raw pesto, it contains a wealth of vitamins and minerals. 

It's suitable for virtually all diets – including vegans, meaning it lacks cheese – and achieves this while adhering as closely to traditional recipes as possible. It's a little on the pricey side, and some may be disappointed by the lack of cheese, but this is a highly flavoursome, organic pesto sauce with a surprisingly long shelf life. 

Produced in Lingua, the home of Pesto, this versatile classic is bursting with the taste of Italian basil. The popularity of the Filippo Berio brand in the UK also means this pesto sauce is very easy to find in supermarkets or to bulk buy online. 

It tastes great, but some may feel disheartened when they look a little closer at the ingredients and discover that this sauce's authenticity is somewhat compromised by a large number of additional ingredients. 

A versatile sauce, Le Conserve Della Nonna's green pesto is free from gluten, dairy, soy, and egg, meaning it's suitable for just about anyone. Its high basil content also gives it a distinctive flavour.

There's a rather key ingredient missing here, however, as this oil substitutes olive oil for sunflower seed oil, the result being a reduction in both quality and authenticity. Its shelf life of only 3 days leaves a lot to be desired, too.