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.
Recipe Card
Easy Vegan Pesto (10 Mins)
Ingredients
- 1 cup (24 g) packed fresh basil
- 1 cup (30 g) 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
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.
Mary
Hi, thank you for another great looking recipe! Are the hemp or sunflower seeds necessary? If I leave them out, will be change the taste or texture?
Vegan Richa Support
You can use whichever nuts or seeds you like. The texture will be the same after processing 🙂
Neela
Love all your recipes Richa🤗
Vegan Richa Support
thank you!
Barbara
I have so much basil from my garden, is it possible to make and freeze this? It sounds delicious!
Vegan Richa Support
you can actually freeze pesto 🍃
sony
Hi, so how about add green chilli like serrano?
Vegan Richa Support
great idea – add some heat
Dr Shreya
Hi! What should I used instead of basil? Can’t use tulsi na? Or just more spinach?
Richa
You can use tulsi. Flavor will be different
Emma
All of your recipes are great – and this is no exception. Thank you Richa for all that you do.
Vegan Richa Support
thank you Emma
Janet
Love this!!
Richa
Thanks!
sheeba m
hi Richa
Instead of nutritional yeast what else can I use?
Richa
omit it
Swetha
This recipe is so easy to make and super delicious. As soon as it was done, my husband and I finished it in no time. Could not take a pic and post! Thanks Richa for all the wonderful recipes. I love it that you give alternatives for everything and also inform why we need to use certain ingredients. Its very insightful and helpful for someone who hated cooking to now someone who has ordered cookbooks! Thanks for making cooking/baking seem so easy!
Richa
Thank you for the wonderful note Swetha! So glad you loved it!
Cheri
This looks easy and delicious, thanks for the recipe!
Richa
Thanks
SYLVIE FONTVIEILLE
extra avec des wraps aux légumes
Richa
thanks