Pair pesto with pork instead of parmesan for lactose-free flavor

It was an interesting dinner dilemma. A huge bag of incredibly aromatic fresh basil. A heap of pasta that just begged for pesto. And one lactose intolerant dinner guest who couldn't eat the parmesan cheese that gives pesto its deeply savory flavor.

My options seemed bleak. Vegan pestos were out; they fool no one. I was leaning toward thinly slicing the basil and tossing it with the pasta along with some extra-virgin olive oil, minced garlic, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper.

That would have been fine, but then I started considering other ingredients that share parmesan's seriously savory (also called umami in the food world) flavor profile. And of those ingredients, which could handle being ground up into pesto.

Bacon.

Just trust me. It was a stunning success. The resulting pesto was meatier than conventional recipes, but not heavy in the way a meat sauce is. And as it does with Parmesan, the herby taste of the basil cuts through the fatty bacon.

This pesto is delicious tossed with pasta, but it's also great smeared onto slices of sourdough bread, topped with tomato and a slab of fresh mozzarella, then briefly broiled.