A dollop of pesto elevates your week night pasta and with its verdant, silky appearance, it’s easy to tell ourselves this condiment is a healthy option, too. Unfortunately, just one serving of some supermarket pestos contains more salt than a McDonald’s hamburger and three times the fat.

Not all fats or pestos are created equal, however. Here’s our guide to the health benefits of pesto, the healthiest way to prepare it – plus the best ones to buy, ranked by our experts.

A traditional pesto – sometimes called green pesto or pesto alla genovese – has just a handful of key ingredients: basil, olive oil, pine nuts, garlic, hard cheese and “maybe a bit of salt”, says Rob Hobson, a registered nutritionist and the author of Unprocess Your Life.

While these are still the basic components of any shop-bought pesto, many brands will add in “a lot of rapeseed oil and sunflower oil, and often potato flakes to bulk it out,” says Sophie Trotman, a registered nutritionist.

A standard supermarket pesto brand might also substitute out the traditional pine nut for cashews and use stabilisers and acidity regulators to up the product’s shelf life.

The ingredients in pesto contain a range of health benefits. These include:

• Lowering cholesterol (from olive oil)
• Reduced inflammation (from olive oil and basil)
• Source of antioxidants and flavonoids (from basil)
• Source of vitamins B12 and E as well as magnesium (from pine nuts and cheese)

“Basil also contains eugenol, an essential oil that’s anti-inflammatory,” Trotman says. “It’s also good to increase the diversity of plant foods we consume as this is great for our gut health.

“Pesto has basil, pine nuts and often garlic, so that’s three of the 30 different plant foods you should try to eat every week.”

Parmesan meanwhile is “a source of calcium and B12, which is very important for bone health and red blood cell production,” Hobson says.

With the health benefits come the drawbacks. These include:

• Weight gain, when eaten in large amounts (pesto is highly calorie-dense)
• It is high in saturated fat which could outbalance the cholesterol-lowering benefits of olive oil
• A high salt content could raise blood pressure
• Additives and preservatives make many supermarket pestos into ultra-processed foods

Weighing up the pros and cons of pesto

Ultimately, all of the health benefits of pesto only stand true when it’s consumed in moderation, Trotman says – but so do the downsides, “given that most of us are only eating a spoonful at a time”.

“Pesto can be quite high in calories, so try to stick to the recommended serving size [around 50g],” she says. “It’s healthiest to make your own pesto if you can, so that you can control what goes into it in terms of its salt content too.”

Hobson agrees. “Some pestos will have additives that you don’t recognise in them, which makes them ultra-processed foods,” he explains, which have been “linked to numerous health conditions”.

“When choosing a jarred sauce it’s important to check the label at the front for a product’s nutritional properties, and then check the back to find the one with no or the least additives.”

If you eat pesto regularly, and you would like to do so without worrying about your heart health or waistline, the best way to consume it is by making your own (see below for recipes).

“The beauty of making your own pesto is that you can add really healthy ingredients to it,” says Hobson. “Some people add things like spinach, peas or different types of nuts for extra nutrients and you can decide for yourself how much cheese to add, which can help reduce the salt and sat fat content.”

Failing that, fresh supermarket pestos are your best bet, as they tend to contain fewer additives and less salt. As the vitamin C in basil “can degrade”, you’ll feel the most benefit here too if you go for a fresh product, says Trotman.

Fortunately, The Telegraph has several pesto recipes to hand to help you blitz up your own sauces. Here is one traditional recipe for a pesto dressing.