Homemade vegan pesto

Out of all of the popular Italian sauces, pesto is always my personal favourite. It is creamy, nutty and garlicky with a lovely basil flavouring. You can simply toss it in with pasta, or add it on top of pizza dough or flatbread, and effortlessly you can create beautiful dishes infused with a unique Italian flavour.

Traditionally, pesto is made with basil, garlic, olive oil, pine nuts, salt and Parmesan cheese. So how can we make vegan pesto without using Parmesan cheese?

It’s not a secret in the vegan world that we replace cheese or even create a vegan cheese with nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast contains protein and packs with multiple vitamins. Nutritional yeast is often high in vitamin B12 which is important as this is a vital vitamin which is rarely present in plant food. It maintains the health of our body’s nerves and blood cells and also produces DNA – the genetic material in all cells.

For my vegan pesto recipe, I keep all the traditional pesto ingredients but simply replace the Parmesan cheese with nutritional yeast. Adding this pesto to your regular cooking not only satisfies your taste buds but also helps balance your vegan diet.

Making this vegan pesto is super simple and it only takes 5 minutes to prepare. Essentially, you just need to throw all the ingredients into a food processor or blender for few minutes. And you get this lovely nutritious vegan pesto.

This super tasty pesto is the perfect Italian flavour to enhance soup, salad, pasta, pizza, toast, sandwiches and more!!!!!!!!! It is zesty, cheesy, garlicky, healthy, creamy and it’s so good that you probably won’t even notice that it’s vegan. It is also raw and therefore can be served hot or cold.

Best to store the pesto in a small jar with a lid in a refrigerator to prevent oxidation. Alternatively, pour into ice cube moulds and store in a freezer for up to 1 month. Please also check out my other recipes with pesto sauce:

• Raw courgette spaghetti with pesto
• Pesto on toast with kale and mushrooms

This recipe was created for Veahero, a cool new (free!) meal planning platform for vegans and vegetarians.

If you have followed and made this recipe, let me know! Leave a comment and take a picture, tagging it with #k33_kitchen and share it on Instagram! I’d be very excited to see what you come up with. Cheers, hope you enjoy my recipes!