This Vegan Basil Pesto is a must-have Italian sauce in your kitchen! It is a super flavorful and fresh addition to a lot of savory dishes. It is easy and quick to make, just make sure you use high-quality and fresh basil leaves.
Table of Contents
Why you’ll LOVE this recipe
Super fresh: This recipe gets its aromatic freshness from fresh basil leaves. Dried basil unfortunately doesn’t work.
Easy & Quick: In 20 minutes, you can have a delicious pesto pasta for dinner.
Ingredients
- fresh basil leaves
- garlic
- pine nuts
- olive oil
- nutritional yeast
- salt & ground black pepper
How to Make
STEP 1:
Heat a skillet or non-stick pan over medium-low heat and carefully toast the pine nuts (just until they are golden brown). Be careful, because they burn really easily.
STEP 2:
Add all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. If needed, stop whatever kitchen appliance you are using and scrape down the sides with a plastic spatula.
Mira’s Tip: You can always grow your own basil. That’s the best way to ensure the tastiest and healthiest pesto, ever.
Serving Suggestions
The best way to serve Basil Pesto is over freshly cooked spaghetti, or use it in my Vegan Pesto Pasta Salad.
Substitutions
Note: The nutritional info of this recipe is calculated with the original ingredients.
Pine nuts: Traditional pesto calls for pine nuts, but if you can use cashews too.
Nutritional yeast: Nutritional yeast in this recipe is used to substitute parmesan cheese, but you can leave it out.
FAQ
YOu can put pesto on pasta, toast, tofu slices and even in salad, pasta salads and burgers.
Basil pesto lasts for up to 3-4 days in the fridge in a sealed container.
Traditional pesto recipe has parmesan cheese or percorino cheese in it, so you can substitute with vegan parmesan or nutritional yeast.
Traditional pesto has pine nuts in it, but you can also use cashews.
More vegan pesto recipes:
Pesto Pasta Salad
Pesto Quinoa Salad
Related recipe roundups:
Mediterranean, Italian, dinner, pasta
Vegan Basil Pesto
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups fresh basil leaves
- 2 cloves garlic (minced)
- ⅓ cup pine nuts
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- ¼ tsp salt
- ⅙ tsp ground black pepper
Instructions
- Heat a skillet or non-stick pan over medium-low heat and carefully toast the pine nuts (just until they are golden brown). Be careful, because they burn really easily.
- Add all ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. If needed, stop whatever kitchen appliance you are using and scrape down the sides with a plastic spatula.
Finally a simple pesto recipe! Tried this out last weekend and it was so good. :))))