Vegan Pesto

Hello dear readers, and welcome back to my blog.

It's been a busy Spring here at my desert home in Nevada with family visiting, planning for my youngest son's upcoming wedding, and also making plans for my return home to Alaska. But I wanted to pop into my blog and share my recipe for Vegan Pesto before Summertime begins.

I love the flavor of traditional pesto on pasta or as a pizza sauce, but after adopting a vegan diet in 2019, I began purchasing a store-bought vegan pesto. The store-bought vegan pesto was tasty and convenient, but I really wanted to come up with my own homemade recipe. So after a little trial and error, I discovered the Follow Your Heart brand of vegan parmesan. I simply replaced the dairy parmesan with the Follow Your Heart Parmesan in a basic pesto recipe, and I think the results turned out pretty good.

Let me know what you think in the comments, and have a very happy Summer.

Vegan Pesto

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 cup packed fresh basil, destemmed

1/2 cup pine nuts

2 Tbsp. Follow Your Heart Vegan Parmesan

3 cloves garlic

Juice of 1 lemon

1/2 tsp. salt

3 Tbsp. olive oil

Instructions:

1. Destem basil and place in food processor along with pine nuts, vegan parmesan, garlic, lemon juice, and salt.
2. With motor running, slowly add olive oil until mixed. Stop to scrape down sides of blender, if necessary. 
3. Serve immediately on pasta or pizza, or store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator for up to 7 days.

A healthy basil plant from the grocery store.