I love pesto. Green or red, herby or spicy, there are very few things that can’t be improved by a spoonful of the stuff.

But, to my dismay, it seems that there are many in this world who are oblivious to the joys of pesto. I can distinctly remember two separate occasions where I have been asked by a friend, “What exactly is it?”

It’s not the most important thing to know about, I grant you that, but in the grand scheme of food-related vocabulary it can come in handy. So, this week’s column aims to enlighten you on the many uses of the sauce, with the hope that one day, you too will take the pesto plunge.

"I love pesto. Green or red, herby or spicy, there are very few things that can’t be improved by a spoonful of the stuff"

Wikipedia will tell you that pesto is an Italian sauce originally from Genoa, a city in the north of Italy. Traditional pesto is made of fresh basil leaves, olive oil, pine nuts, garlic and some Parmesan cheese, all blitzed up together to make a silky, vibrant green sauce. There are lots of recipes online telling you how to make your own; you can make it with walnuts, spinach leaves, or cashew nuts, or you could even try substituting sundried tomatoes for the basil.

But wait! I hear you cry. What is this basil I hear you speak of? It sounds scarily like some kind of medicinal herb. (Apparently sixteenth-century herbalist John Gerard believed that if you had been stung by a scorpion, basil would help to reduce the pain, but that’s neither here nor there.) Basil is a beautifully fragrant herb – second only to coriander, in my opinion – whose scent conjures up images of Italian hills and warm sunny evenings spent eating pizzas in Naples, and whose very presence amid a plate of fresh tomatoes and mozzarella cheese has been known to make foodies such as myself practically cry with happiness.

I’ll stop talking about basil now. Back to the pesto.

This post isn’t about how to make your own pesto – we don’t have the time (or the money) for that. As nice as freshly-made pesto may be, there is nothing wrong with pesto from a jar. We eat it back home almost every Wednesday night atop a bowl of pasta, bacon and broccoli, sprinkled with cheese.

That’s recipe idea number one.

Number two? If you’re one of the lucky people to have an oven in your gyp room, you can make a glorious main course (use it to impress that special someone in your life): take a chicken breast, coat one side of it in a spoonful of green (or red) pesto, and bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 40 minutes until the chicken juices run clear when pricked with a fork and the chicken-pesto smell is too much to wait for. Eat it hot with salad and potatoes, or green beans and rice. You could also eat it cold in a pasta salad.

That takes me onto my next use for pesto: as a salad dressing. Technically, I’m not sure this should even be called a recipe, so we’ll call it an “idea” or an “inspiration”.

Cook some pasta. Let it cool. Add some chopped vegetables (try fresh red peppers or steamed spinach). Maybe a bit of ham or cooked chicken, if you like, or a crumbling of salty feta cheese. Stir in some pesto and stick it in a box for a lunch that will have everyone in the faculty looking at you. You may even get a Crushbridge written about your salad.

Delia Smith (culinary goddess of the Seventies, for those of you who don’t know her) advocates making a pesto rice salad. She uses risotto rice and adds the pesto in when she is cooking the rice, but I feel that making risotto is a bit unnecessary. Just boil some normal rice (or microwave a bag of Uncle Ben’s, if that’s more your style) and add pesto when it is cool. Of course, pesto would be delicious in risotto, too, served with green beans or broccoli and sprinklings of cheese.

Feeling fancy? Mix a spoonful of pesto with a little bit of oil (try to get some kind of olive oil) and use it to dress up a tomato salad.

Need a quick lunch? Put a spoonful of it on a slice of bread or a tortilla wrap and top with chicken and red pepper. Extra points for you if you add some cheese and toast it.

And here’s the last one: swirl it through your scrambled eggs.

Life-changing.