This simple, oil-free pesto is made in less than five minutes, it’s fresh, bright and refreshing and goes great over pasta, on bread, or any other way you normally enjoy pesto! It can also be made with the traditional fresh basil or mixed up with a variety of other greens. If you try out this recipe, please share it with me by commenting here or on my YouTube channel, or even tagging me in a photo on Instagram @plantsnotplastic. I read every comment and love hearing from you. Enjoy!
Easy Oil-Free Pesto
Equipment
- high-speed blender
Ingredients
- 2 cups basil leaves, main stems removed packed; sub spinach or other greens [note#1]
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 2 cloves garlic whole
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 4-6 tbsp water
- 2 tbsp vegan parmesan cheese substitute [see directions for recipe]
Instructions
- Make a batch of Vegan Parmesan Cheese
- Add all ingredients to a high-speed blender or food processor and pulse until all ingredients are combined into a sauce
- Serve right away or refrigerate for future use; stores for up to a week.
- Enjoy!
Notes
- While pesto is traditionally made with basil, I use spinach more often than basil (because it's easier to find and less expensive) and lots of other greens and herbs can be substituted in its place - baby kale, arugula, watercress, parsley, cilantro, mint, sage & tarragon all work great; I've even heard you can use lettuce (but I won't vouch for it!). Feel free to play with this recipe with these other options and see how you like it!
Video Transcript:
Welcome back to Plants Not Plastic. I’m Nikita, and today I’m gonna show you how to make a vegan parmesan and an oil-free pesto that are both delicious, inexpensive, simple, healthy, whole foods, plant based, lower fat and oil free.
Before we get started, if this is your first time here or you’re not already subscribed and you like this video, make sure you click the subscribe button and the bell so you can get notifications whenever I upload a new video. I release new content every week, would love to have you stick around and appreciate the support!
I typically make this vegan parmesan as part of my sweet potato lasagna recipe and if you haven’t seen that video I highly recommend that you pause and go check it out because it’s a popular one. But I also figured it was worth showing this recipe separately because it’s a great topping for all kinds of Italian-based dishes like marinara or basil tomato sauce served over pasta or meatless meatballs, and it’s also a necessary ingredient for my oil-pesto recipe. As for the pesto, I tend to be a classic red sauce and pasta girl, but it’s such a popular sauce and it’s just so easy to make oil-free that I wanted to share a recipe with you.
We’re going to start with the vegan parmesan and here’s everything you’ll need to make this recipe. I’m also leave everything in the description box below along with a links to both blog posts that have printable recipe cards. Let’s start by covering the options for the vegan parmesan. Cashews are going to taste the best. They’re slightly sweet and have less fiber, so when they’re blended that don’t maintain that typical nut texture but have a smooth, creamy mouthfeel instead. A healthier nut option, though, is walnuts because they have a higher omega 3 to omega 6 ratio. The vegan parmesan is still good with them but it will carry that distinct, slightly bitter taste and it will be a bit drier than the cashews. And then hemp seeds or hearts, which are the same thing, are a healthy nut-free option. The texture of the seeds are nice enough to eat whole because they’re soft but can they easily be blended, they don’t carry a distinct flavor, and their omega 3 to 6 ratio is pretty close to walnuts so they’re a decent middle ground between healthiest and tastiest. But all three options are great and the choice is yours for what to use as the base! And you could even use a mix.
To make the parmesan topping, you’ll simply throw all of your ingredients together in a blender, unless you’re opting for the hemp seeds and would prefer to enjoy the whole in which case you’re just mixing everything together in a small bowl. you’ll add your nut or seed of choice along with the rolled oats, nutritional yeast, parsley, garlic powder, pepper and salt and blend everything until you’ve got a smooth, even, crumbly mixture. And in case you’re wondering why rolled oats are in this, they help to absorb some of the natural oil in the nuts and keeps mixture from clumping up while blending it, where with the hemp seeds they just mix up the texture a little bit. Transfer your mixture to a storage container and it can be used right away or stored in the fridge to use as a topping on all your favorite dishes. Cashews on their own can last in the fridge for up to 6 months or a whole year in the freezer, so this blend is something you can easily put into an airtight container and have available for a long, long time, just like the Kraft parmesan most of us grew up eating.
Now that we’ve got our vegan cashew parm in the right-sized container and gotten all the spilled stuff of off our shirts, we’re ready to start a pot of water for some pasta and move on to the oil-free pesto. If you count the parm as one ingredient, this pesto is just five total, and here are the amounts you’ll need for each. Again, talking about options for your base for your pesto, basil is the most traditional green and will taste the most similar to the pesto we’re all used to, but you can really use any green you have around for this. I bought basil for this video, but I typically just use spinach because I buy it for our weekly salads already, it’s cheaper and I can buy it with less packaging, but you can also use kale, arugula, watercress, parsley, cilantro, mint, sage or even tarragon instead. I’ve even heard you can just use plain old lettuce, and while that may be a bridge to far for me, feel free to play around with any of these options.
Same as with the parmesan, this is as simple as throwing everything together in your blender and **obliterating it; just blending it up. I typically add everything but the greens and vegan parmesan to the bottom to make sure they get evenly incorporated and I find it helps the mixture to blend easier if you have the liquid at the bottom, so the whole cloves of garlic, lemon juice, water and salt, and then I pack in the greens before sprinkling the parmesan over the top to make sure it actually mixes in rather than sticking to my blender blades. I recommend doing this with a high speed blender and pausing to scrape down the sides so you aren’t left with any large pieces of greens or chunks of garlic. I also recommend starting with the smallest amount of water and lemon juice and adding just a half tablespoon to a tablespoon at a time to taste or until you can get everything to blend without making it too watery. Once you’ve got the sauce smooth and even, you can pour it straight over your pasta if you’re making a large batch or transfer it to a small container to store in the fridge for future enjoyment.
I served up a portion off camera to snap some photos for the blog and thumbnail, but now we’re ready to dig in for a taste test. If you’ve been around for awhile you know that I typically only recommend recipes on this channel that are lower in fat, but this vegan parmesan, while it has nuts and seeds which are going to be higher in fat, is really just a topping, so if used in small amounts you’re still going to have a pretty low fat recipe overall. I love basil and this pesto and smooth, bright and flavorful and coats pasta wonderfully, while the vegan parmesan is savory, rich and delicious. It’s a great combination of two easy recipes that I really enjoy and I think you are going to absolutely love. And if you’re trying to stick to a whole food plant based diet or just eat more vegetables, these are great recipes to add to your collection.
For how it stacks up against an alternative you can check out the full nutritional label on the blog that links out to Cronometer. These recipe, though, are going to be the same as all my others; when comparing it to a non-vegan or processed vegan option, without specialty items or animal products it will cost you less to make, with plant-based ingredients it’ll have more fiber, and without oil or butter you’ll get to eat more of it for the same number of calories.
So that’s it for today’s recipes. If you try them out, let me know in the comments. You can also subscribe to my blog for recipes right to your inbox and connect with me on social media for day to day content. And like always if you have got an idea for something you would like me to make, let me know that in the comments as well, or just go ahead and say hi. I always love hearing from you and I would love to make something that you’re looking for. And don’t forget to subscribe, click the bell, give this video a thumbs up, and come back next time. Bye!
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