The time has come again to start filling the freezer for the coming year. The basil is up, and it’s time to make pesto! We eat a lot of pesto around here, since my children continue to express strong feelings against tomato sauces. They say it stings around their mouths, and although picky eating isn’t really allowed in our household, I make compromises for things that cause a rash. To make pasta meals even more complicated, my son can’t have gluten and both kids are dairy sensitive. So, vegan pesto on rice pasta noodles it is! I long ago gave up on the idea of easy sphagetti dinners. I have also found that pesto is great on gluten-free pizza crusts, sandwiches, tossed with roasted veggies, and as a dip for tortilla chips. It’s a versatile food.
I try to fill as many baby food jars as I can in the summer, and freeze them to eat all year. We seem to get bunches of basil in our CSA box frequently, so I use those, whatever I grow in our garden, and sometimes a few bunches from the farmer’s market. I also use garlic whistles instead of basil sometimes to make a delicious, garlicky pesto. Pine nuts are great, but very expensive, so walnuts or sunflower seeds will work fine as a substitute.
(garlic whistles, or garlic scapes are the curling tops and bud of a garlic plant in the early summer)
Mountain Hearth’s Favorite Vegan Pesto Recipe
1 1/2 cups basil
1/3 cups olive oil
1 cup pine nuts
5 cloves garlic
1/3 cups nutritional yeast
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
Put it all in a food processor and blend until creamy. Fill baby food jars leaving about 1/4 inch headspace and pour a little olive oil over the top to seal in for freshness before freezing.
no laughing too hard, i am just learning. how is other pesto non vegan? i use a recipe that is pretty much the same but wondering what else is out there. i have also made 'pesto' out of cilantro, tarragon, tyme, orageno and use it to flavor meats and fish and salads and such. what is nutritional yeast? like a probiatice?
Looks yummy!! Want to try this sometime. 🙂
Most pesto is made with parmesan cheese, and it's really hard to find one at the store without it. Cheese, being the culprit of many undesirable effects on my kids, is always an interesting thing to find a substitute for in recipes. Nutritional yeast, or brewers yeast, is a cultured yeast that's dried in fine flakes. It is rich in proteins (a complete protein in fact) and high in vitamins, particularly B vitamins. It's a great topping for food and all around cheese substitute. I really enjoy it, and I still eat cheese. Cat, your pestos out of other herbs sound delicious, and I am going to try this with all the cilantro we have that's getting ready to bolt!
So great! I have a good bit of basil in the garden this year too! Well…enough for at least one pesto. Why have I never thought about making it I can't tell you. I also have a slew of baby food jars! Perfect project! Thanks!
I love vegan pesto!! the nutritional yeast is def. the way to go:) Thanks for sharing this great recipe!
I just cut some basil this morning from the garden and will be making this today! Thanks so much for sharing 🙂