🥖🌿 The Nomad Kitchen Golden Garlic Pesto Breadsticks

Written By Tré Taylor

Golden, garlicky and gloriously cheesy, The Nomad Kitchen Golden Garlic Pesto Breadsticks are crisp on the outside, light and chewy inside, and brushed with homemade roasted garlic and fresh herb pesto before being finished with bubbling Gruyère. Inspired by the kind of long, lazy Sunday supper you’d dream of eating around a Tuscan table, these rustic homemade breadsticks are perfect for dipping into a beautiful bowl of Italian soup, serving alongside dinner, or passing around with good wine and people who make you laugh. Make a batch for Sunday supper, freeze the extras, and toast them whenever something warm and delicious needs a little bread on the side. From The Nomad Kitchen by Tré Taylor — tretaylor.com

Crispy & golden outside, warm and chewy inside

slathered with roasted-garlic garden pesto and bubbling Gruyère

🧄🧀✨

There is something particularly wonderful about having a pot of homemade soup in the freezer and realizing you can make fresh bread to go with it.

These breadsticks came out of one of those glorious Nomad Kitchen cooking days when one recipe starts inspiring another.

I had already made a jar of my Roasted Garlic & Fresh Herb Pesto—five whole heads of mellow roasted garlic blended with basil, cilantro, parsley, Meyer lemon, honey, rice vinegar, red pepper flakes and olive oil.

And then I made bread.

Oh, baby.

These aren't hard, crunchy breadsticks. Think somewhere between a beautiful rustic breadstick and really good pizza crust: light and airy inside, slightly chewy, golden and crisp around the edges.

Just before they're finished baking, they're brushed generously with that intensely flavorful roasted-garlic pesto and returned to the oven. Then comes a snowfall of Gruyère for the final few minutes.

The result?

Hot bread. Roasted garlic. Fresh herbs. Bubbling cheese.

Soup suddenly has a date for dinner.

🛒 Ingredients

For the Breadstick Dough

  • 3 cups bread flour, preferably unbleached or organic

  • 1 packet active dry yeast (2¼ teaspoons)

  • 1 cup warm water, divided

  • 1 teaspoon sugar or honey

  • 1 teaspoon flaky sea salt

  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the bowl

Yumminess before it goes into the oven.

For the Golden Pesto Topping

Cheese alternatives: Parmesan, Pecorino Romano, Asiago, mozzarella—or whatever beautiful melting cheese is already waiting in your refrigerator.

🌿 You'll Also Need

A large mixing bowl, measuring cup, parchment-lined baking sheet and pastry brush.

No pastry brush?

Use the back of a spoon.

The Nomad Kitchen is not interested in making you buy equipment to brush pesto onto bread. 😂

🫧 Step 1 — Wake Up the Yeast

Pour about ¼ cup of the warm water into a measuring cup.

The water should feel pleasantly warm, not hot—roughly 90–105°F is lovely.

Stir in:

  • Yeast

  • Sugar or honey

Let it sit for about 5–10 minutes.

You'll know your yeast is awake when the surface becomes creamy and foamy.

If absolutely nothing happens, your yeast may have expired. Better to discover that now than after staring lovingly at an unrisen lump of dough for an hour.

🥖 Step 2 — Make the Dough

Place the bread flour and salt in a large mixing bowl.

Make a little well in the center.

Pour in the activated yeast mixture, olive oil and enough of the remaining warm water to form a soft dough.

Mix until everything comes together.

If it's extremely sticky, sprinkle in a little more flour.

If it feels dry and stubborn, add warm water a tablespoon at a time.

You want a dough that's soft, supple and slightly tacky, rather than dry.

🤲 Step 3 — Knead It

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface.

Knead for approximately 6–8 minutes, until it becomes smooth and elastic.

You can also knead it in a stand mixer with a dough hook.

Form it into a ball.

☀️ Step 4 — Let It Rise

Lightly coat a clean bowl with olive oil.

Place your dough inside, turning it once so the surface gets a whisper of oil.

Cover with a clean kitchen towel and put it somewhere warm and draft-free.

Let rise approximately 60–90 minutes, or until roughly doubled in size.

This isn't something to rush.

Go make soup.

Pet the cat.

Have some tea.

The yeast knows what it's doing. ❤️

🥖 Step 5 — Shape Your Breadsticks

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Gently punch down the risen dough and turn it onto your work surface.

Divide into approximately 10–12 pieces.

Roll each piece into a rustic breadstick about 7–9 inches long.

They don't need to match.

In fact, I prefer when they don't.

Homemade bread should look homemade.

Arrange them on the parchment with a little breathing room between each.

Allow them to rest another 10–15 minutes while the oven finishes heating.

These reheat in the toaster oven like magic!

🔥 Step 6 — Bake Until Golden

Bake at 400°F for approximately 15–20 minutes, until the bottoms have begun developing color.

Turn each breadstick over.

Reduce the oven to 375°F and continue baking another 8–12 minutes.

You're looking for breadsticks that are beginning to become beautifully golden and crisp outside but remain tender inside.

Remember: ovens have personalities.

Watch the bread, not just the clock.

🌿🧄 Step 7 — Bring On the Pesto

Now comes the reason we're all here.

Remove the nearly finished breadsticks from the oven.

Generously brush them with The Nomad Kitchen Roasted Garlic & Fresh Herb Pesto.

Get the tops.

Get the sides.

And yes, I like a little on the bottoms too.

Return them to the oven for approximately 3–5 minutes.

This warms the pesto, wakes up the roasted garlic and herbs, and lets some of that gorgeous olive oil soak into the crust.

🧀 Step 8 — Gruyère, Baby

Pull them out once more and scatter freshly grated Gruyère over the tops.

Return to the oven for another 2–4 minutes, just until the cheese melts and begins turning beautifully golden.

If you'd like extra color, give them a very brief moment under the broiler—but don't wander away.

There is approximately seventeen seconds between:

"Ohhhh, gorgeous!"

and

"WHO BURNED MY CHEESE?" 😂

🍲 Serve Them With Something Wonderful

Serve these hot alongside:

  • Tomato soup

  • Roasted vegetable soup

  • French onion soup

  • Creamy mushroom soup

  • Chicken soup

  • Seafood chowder

  • Minestrone

  • A beautiful stew

  • A big green salad

  • Eggs for brunch

Or put a basket on the table with a little dish of extra pesto and let everybody fend for themselves.

They'll manage.

❄️ Make Sunday Feed Tuesday

This may be my favorite thing about them.

Make the whole batch.

Cool the extra breadsticks completely, then place them in a freezer-safe zip-top bag. Press out excess air and freeze.

Now when you pull one of your homemade soups from the freezer, you've already got the bread.

To Reheat

From thawed, pop one into a toaster or toaster oven until hot and crisp.

From frozen, a 350°F oven for roughly 10–15 minutes works beautifully; flip halfway through.

The crust wakes right back up, the center becomes warm and chewy, and the pesto and cheese become fragrant again.

🌿 Nomad Kitchen Experiment

I haven't done this yet, but someday I'm absolutely going to:

Knead a little Roasted Garlic & Fresh Herb Pesto directly into the dough.

I'd start cautiously—perhaps ¼ cup pesto, reducing the added olive oil and water slightly to compensate.

But for this original recipe, I actually prefer keeping the bread itself beautifully simple.

Because then you taste the progression:

warm bread → olive oil → roasted garlic → fresh herbs → Meyer lemon → little spark of chile → melted Gruyère.

That's the good stuff.

Tré Taylor
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