I love pesto! I enjoy making not only traditional basil version of it or other herbs, but also from greens like carrot leaves, nettle, spinach, rocket… This time I made it from what I grabbed at Mom’s garden and turned out really great 🙂 My pesto is a little bit different from traditional one – there are no pine nuts in it and of course it’s without cheese (vegan version!). I recommend making it especially if you have a lot of herbs and remember – you can make loads and freeze some for winter!:)
Tips and insights:
- you can sub herbs in recipe to other greens you like, just keep the proportion;
- try sunflower seeds, pine nuts, hemp seeds or cashews instead of pumpkin seeds;
- choose high quality olive oil as you will taste it;
- salt is the last thing you want to add as it can bruise the herbs and turn them black faster;
- I use herb leaves for the pesto but I never throw out the stalks – I freeze them and use them for stocks, soups, stews.
You will need:
- 1 clove of garlic
- 150g extra virgin olive oil
- 10g nutritional yeast
- 70g pumpkin seeds
- 60g basil
- 25g rocket
- 15g parsley
- 40g lemon juice
- 5g agave syrup
- 5g salt
What to do?
- first I blend liquids with garlic, nutritional yeast and pumpkin seeds;
- then I add herbs and continue blending - pesto shouldn't be smooth so make sure to not overblend it and leave some bits in it;
- then I add salt and give it another quick blitz or just stir it in with a spoon.
Enjoy!