Easy Vegan Pesto

Easy and Delicious Vegan Pesto. Use with pasta, salads, over pizza, over garlic bread, roasted veggies, sandwiches, lasagna, wraps! Nut-free option. Vegan gluten-free soy-free Recipe. Jump to Recipe

When there is abundance of fresh herbs, dont let them sit and spoil. Make a flavorful and easy pesto and use or freeze! A good pesto adds refreshing flavor to a simple pasta meal. It can be used in other ways too. Add to roasted veggie sandwiches, Grilled cheese sandwiches, pasta salad, grilled flatbreads/pizza, serve with lasagna soup and what not!

This easy pesto has just a few ingredients, fresh herbs, some nuts and seeds, flavors from salt, garlic lemon and cheesy flavor from nutritional yeast(which can easily be omitted). Just process in a food processor and done!

What can I use the Vegan Pesto for

• Try the Vegan Pesto Pasta with charred broccoli and blistered cherry tomatoes.
• Use it on a Pizza with toppings of choice.
• Toss with Spaghetti and serve with chickpea “meatballs”
• Add to sandwiches with roasted seasonal veggies and vegan cheeses, or plain grilled cheese sandwiches.
• Add to lasagnas and lasagna soup.
• Use as salad dressing or add to bowl meals.

Ingredients for Vegan Pesto:

• Basil and greens like spinach, parsley or cilantro make up the herb base
• I like to use a combination of sunflower seeds and nuts in the pesto for texture and flavor. Use pine nuts, pecans, walnuts, cashews or almonds.
• To keep the pesto nut-free, use a combination of 2 or more of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds
• Garlic, salt and zest of a lemon add amazing flavors.
• a bit of extra virgin olive oil rounds it up.
• Some water is added for consistency instead of adding more oil

VEGAN PESTO QUESTIONS

How long does vegan pesto last in the fridge? You can keep the pesto for 5 days in the fridge.

Can I make it Nut-free? Yes, use a combination of 2 or more of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds

Can I make the Pesto Oil-free? Yes, just omit the oil.

What other herbs can be used to make the pesto? Any tender flavorful herbs and greens and combination of herbs can be used such as parsley, cilantro, mint, arugula, baby kale, spinach, chard etc.

More Pasta Meals from the blog

• Sundried Tomato and Garlic Pasta with Soy curls.So beautiful!
• Garlic Pasta with Cajun Cauliflower  – super popular
• Rose Sauce Farfalle – so Creamy!
• Lentil Bolognese with Spaghetti.– Hearty
• Cauliflower Parmesan Pasta Bake – sliced cauliflower, baked then dressed in vegan mozz, baked over pasta
• Chickpea Chorizo, Quinoa shells in tomato sauce. GF – So Meaty.

Easy Vegan Pesto (10 Mins)

5 from 7 votes

By: Vegan Richa

Prep: 10 minutes mins

Cook: 10 minutes mins

Total: 20 minutes mins

Servings: 4

Course: Side

Cuisine: Italian

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Easy and Delicious Vegan Pesto. Use with pasta, salads, over pizza, over garlic bread, roasted veggies, wraps! Nut-free option. Vegan gluten-free soy-free Recipe

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Ingredients 

US CustomaryMetric

 

1x2x3x

• ▢ 1 cup packed fresh basil
• ▢ 1 cup spinach, or baby kale, or loosely packed parsley, cilantro or more basil
• ▢ 2 tbsp sunflower seeds, or hemp seeds
• ▢ 3 tbsp pine nuts or pecans, or use almonds, cashews, walnuts, (hemp seeds or more sunflower seeds for nutfree)
• ▢ 2 cloves of garlic
• ▢ 1/4 tsp salt
• ▢ 1 tbsp nutritional yeast, , optional, add a cheesy flavor, or use vegan parmesan of choice
• ▢ zest of half a lemon, or use lemon juice to taste
• ▢ 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• ▢ water as needed
• ▢ black pepper, , red pepper flakes or other flavor addition

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Instructions 

• Add basil, spinach, sunflower seeds, pecans, garlic, salt, nutritional yeast, lemon zest to a food processor. Process until a coarse mixture.
• Add olive oil and a tbsp or so water. and process again. Add more water if needed to make a homogeneous mixture.
• Taste and adjust flavor. Add more oil to preference, adjust salt, add more nutritional yeast for cheesier. Use with pasta, salads, over pizza, over garlic bread, in sandwiches with roasted veggies and other applications.

  Store refrigerated for upto 5 days. Freeze in ice cubes.

Notes

Nut-free: Use a combination of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds instead of  the nuts. 

Tip: if using large nuts of harder nuts, pulse just the nuts first to make into a coarse meal then add basil etc. 

Nutrition is for 1 serve of 4.

Nutrition

Calories: 123kcal, Carbohydrates: 4g, Protein: 4g, Fat: 10g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Sodium: 155mg, Potassium: 186mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 1g, Vitamin A: 1215IU, Vitamin C: 4.2mg, Calcium: 23mg, Iron: 1.2mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

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