How to Make Pesto Egg Salad

Egg salad is one of those comfort dishes I go back to as a fairly healthy lunch option that I don’t have to feel guilty about.

I love spreading egg salad on bread and having that for a meal, because it’s a good source of protein and fairly filling, but it’s also nutritionally rich.

Because I love egg salad so much, I’m always looking for ways to play around with it and do something different.

I tried egg salad with pesto for the first time recently and was absolutely in love with it.

The biggest difference is how it looks, but there’s also a subtle change in taste that adds another layer of complexity to the dish. I feel like I can do more with it now and that I’ve taken egg salad to the next level.

I’ll share with you my recipe for pesto egg salad sandwich and give you some ideas for different dishes you can make by combining pesto and egg salad together into one beautiful union.

Pesto Egg Salad Recipe

I’m going to give you a recipe for pesto egg salad that you make from scratch, but you can save yourself some time and buy the pesto already premade.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of basil, packed full
• 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup of pine nuts
• 1/4 cup of olive oil
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 2 celery sticks
• 12 eggs
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 cup of Greek yogurt

Directions:

1. Mix all of the ingredients for pesto into a food processor or a blender- that’s the basil, pine nuts, olive oil, salt, garlic, and parmesan cheese. Combine until they are smooth.
2. Next, hard boil the eggs by putting them into a large pot and covering them with an inch of water. Heat the water until it starts to boil.
3. When the water begins boiling, take the pot off the heat, turn off the heat, and cover the pot. Allow it to sit for 12 minutes.
4. Carefully remove the eggs and run cold water over them until they are not hot. You can use a slotted spoon or tongs to take the eggs out of the pot.
5. When the eggs are cool enough, you can slice them by hand or with an egg slicer.
6. Then, slice the celery sticks in half and chop them to make small pieces.
7. Put the eggs, Greek yogurt, pesto, and celery into a large bowl and mix together well.
8. Add a little salt and black pepper to bring out the flavor and then store your mixture in the refrigerator.

Egg salad can store in the fridge in a airtight container for about 3 days.

You can take the pesto egg salad mixture and spread it on a sandwich before it cools, if you like. Or, you may want to wait till it’s chilled and spread it cold on the sandwich. I recommend a thick bread for this, and my preferences are Italian bread or wheat bread.

Egg Salad Kale Pesto

I will sometimes make pesto using kale to add nutritional value to it and create my own personal superfood.

Let me show you how to do that, and you can take the recipe below for kale pesto and combine it with the egg salad recipe I’ve given you above to make kale egg salad pesto.

Ingredients:

• 1 small garlic clove
• 1/2 cup of pepitas
• 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 dash of ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
• 2 cups of chopped kale, packed tightly
• 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

1. Put the garlic and pepitas in a food processor and pulse. Process them until the pepitas are completely ground.
2. Add the cheese and some black pepper next and pulse them too.
3. Next, add in lemon juice and kale and then turn the food processor on and drizzle in all of the olive oil.
4. Process all of these ingredients until they’re combined smoothly and add salt and black pepper as needed to taste.

If you tried this recipe and find that it’s a little bitter, you can add some sweetener to it. My preference is 1/4 teaspoon of honey or maple syrup.

Chicken Egg Salad Tomato Pesto Mayo

There are a lot of variations on pesto egg salad you can do. I like to add some extra color and creaminess to this, incorporating mayonnaise and tomato into the mix. For added texture and protein, I may include chicken as well, and this is one of my favorite ways to have egg salad.

Chicken egg salad is just too good, and spruced up with mayonnaise and tomato, it makes for a remarkably complex and delicious dish.

The tomato and chicken go very well together, with the acidity of the tomato being counterbalanced by the chicken’s base flavor.

When making this dish, I use chunks of chicken that are cut to bite size and chilled.

You can buy canned chicken for this very dish, and it’s really easy to add the shredded chunks of chicken to any kind of cold salad or similar dish. That way, you don’t have to cook the chicken yourself or prepare it, cutting down a lot of prep time.

I also use chunks of tomato in the dish and may substitute Greek yogurt for Mayo or put mail in place of about half the yogurt. I think mayonnaise works better than Greek yogurt when you’re throwing tomato and chicken in there, just because you’re cutting out a lot of the sweetness that could clash with those other foods.

For added color, flavor, and texture, I may add in some kernel corn as well. The entire dish is served chilled and can be served on its own as a side dish or even made into a sandwich.

Pesto Avocado Egg Salad

Another variation on this that I’ll do sometimes, uses avocado in the egg salad. Pesto is still included, and then avocado adds additional texture, flavor, and nutrients. Avocados one of those super foods that people are always looking for ways to incorporate into their dishes.

Rather than serving the avocado on the side, I suggest pureeing it in a blender and mixing it in with all the other ingredients, according to the recipe I’ve given you at the beginning of this article.

Avocado is rich in healthy fats, which are good for your heart health, your cholesterol, and your blood pressure. A lot of doctors recommend that people eat several avocados a week to improve these kind of health statistics.

Pesto Egg Tuna Salad

This is a variation we can try if you want to have some meat in your dish but you want to keep it vegetarian. Tuna works really well in egg salad, offering different texture and some added protein.

As with all the recipes and combinations I’ve given you so far, this dish is served cold, with tuna that can come straight from the can. I drain out the excess water or oil though, to keep the egg salad from becoming soupy. You can reserve that tuna water and use it to flavor another dish, and it doesn’t have to be tossed out.

My recommendation with this version of egg salad is to use shredded tuna or small chunks of tuna, making sure that they are bite size and small enough to be eaten with some egg salad in the same spoonful. As with the other recipes and ideas, you can put this into a sandwich as well.

Sundried Tomato Pesto Egg Salad

Pesto and sundried tomatoes go really well together. You’ll find that tomatoes pair well with eggs too, so this is a matchup made in heaven.

I combine all these ingredients together and then spread them on wheat bread or English muffin for a really hearty, delicious, and healthy breakfast or lunch.

If you want to make a really rich variation of this, you can add in some additional shredded cheese and heat up the sandwich in the microwave for about 30 seconds to a minute. That will melt the cheese and make a really gooey and luxurious sandwich.

To make sundried tomato pasta or egg salad, you can follow the recipe I gave you at the start of this article and then add in about 1/4 cup of chopped sundried tomatoes. That mixes together with everything else by hand or in the blender. You can determine which mixing method you want based on how smooth and creamy you want the mixture to be.

These are just a few suggestions for how you can use pesto egg salad and create some variations on it.

Always keep in mind that if your egg salad tastes a little bland, it probably needs a little salt and black pepper to spruce up the flavor.

Try not to leave your egg salad out at room temperature for very long. I think it’s best when served chilled, and it should be stored in the fridge when not in use.

If you keep it in an airtight container, it can store for about three days and still be fresh. After that, give it a sniff before you use it to see if it has gone bad.

Ellis Francis

My name is Ellis Francis and I have been a personal fitness trainer, sports nutritionalist and health and fitness advisor for over 25 years.  I am the lead health and fitness advisor at https://awellnessbody.com.