I don’t know about you, but I adore appetizers, especially around the holidays. We make these 20 minute cheesy caprese pesto tarts all the time!
It’s easy to make a savory appetizer with puff pastry for gatherings and using a few key ingredients will make it taste like you’ve been in the kitchen for hours. Which is my favorite thing, make people think I’ve worked harder than I did.
We’ve done a whole post on pesto, how to make pesto, how to store pesto, how to freeze pesto, how to keep pesto green, how long pesto keeps, and we have plenty of recipes that use pesto which we will link up to at the bottom of the post. So, refer back to that post if you need to read up on pesto.
This is a sponsored post on behalf of Fisher Nuts, however all opinions remain our own.
What Do I Need to Make Pesto Tarts?
Here is a quick rundown of all the ingredients you’ll need. The measurements for everything can be found by scrolling down to the recipe card below.
For the Pesto
- Basil: you can make your own fresh pesto (highly recommend!) or go with store-bought pesto to save time
- Garlic: fresh whole cloves
- Fisher Walnuts: We use walnuts instead of pine nuts to really push that more nutty flavor in this pesto.
- Olive Oil: make sure it is extra virgin for the best flavor
- Parmesan Cheese: adds flavor
- Lemon Zest and Juice: adds a bright pop of freshness and helps keep the basil green
- Salt: enhances all the flavors
For the Tarts
- Puff Pastry: We use store bought puff pastry because hello, who has time to make that from scratch?
- Grape Tomatoes: You can half them or leave them whole depending on the size.
- Mozzarella Cheese: grab a block of good quality cheese and cube it, it melts so perfectly!
- Black Pepper: adds flavor
Tips About Walnuts
Just as with our classic pesto, the secret to really great flavor is in toasting the nuts and garlic. Walnuts, when fresh are not bitter like you may believe. Instead they have a sweetness to them and with that robust garlic it really makes for a great pesto.
The pesto we will make today is a little different as it uses Fisher Nuts Walnuts. We did a random sampling and Fisher Nuts were preservative free, tasted the most fresh and not bitter since they weren’t past their date of freshness.
Did you know that? That good fresh walnuts taste juicy, nutty and sweet? To store walnuts, I keep mine in the blue bag we buy them in as the dark colored bag actually is best to keep them fresh, then we place them in the kitchen cupboard as light degrades the oils.