The best vegan pesto is cheesy, garlicky and loaded with freshness and flavor. Perfect with pasta or pizza and ready in 10 minutes.
If there’s one thing it’s important to have in your vegan recipe repertoire it’s a good vegan pesto.
Regular pesto is usually made with dairy parmesan and pecorino cheeses. Vegan pesto of course doesn’t use dairy cheese so we create the cheesy flavors with nutritional yeast, lemon juice, crushed garlic and other spices.
It’s super easy to throw together without notice and you can serve it with pasta for a 10-minute meal that will literally wow absolutely everyone.
It’s gourmet as heck while being ridiculously simple.
If you love pesto then also check out our vegan pesto pasta and our sun dried tomato pesto.
How To Make Vegan Pesto
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
- Add pine nuts, walnuts, olive oil, crushed garlic, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, basil, parsley, water and salt and pepper to the food processor.
- Process until smooth.
- Your pesto is ready to serve!
Ingredient Notes
Fresh basil and fresh parsley. We used a mix of fresh basil and parsley in this pesto as the parsley provides a lovely balance to the flavor.
Pine nuts and walnuts. We used a mix of pine nuts and walnuts for the same reason – the walnuts provide some balance to the stronger flavor of the pine nuts. So the overall recipe has a lovely flavor balance between strong flavors and mild so that no particular flavor is overpowering.
Olive oil and water. We added ¼ cup water along with ¼ cup olive oil. The water helps to create the perfect texture to the pesto without adding too much heaviness from more oil.
Nutritional yeast and other spices. The cheesy flavor comes from some nutritional yeast, lemon juice, crushed garlic and of course sea salt and black pepper to round off the flavors beautifully.
Serving Suggestions
While this pesto is awesome with some pasta it’s not the only place for it! It’s also divine spread on some crusty bread or on top of a delicious vegan pizza.
You can also have it along with your salad as a salad dressing or on top of your veggies.
Try this pesto on a delicious vegan pasta salad or spread it on some homemade vegan dinner rolls or vegan focaccia.
Storing Instructions
Store leftovers in the fridge where it will stay fresh for 5-7 days. It’s also freezer friendly for up to 6 months.
More Delicious Vegan Italian-Inspired Recipes
- Vegan Alfredo
- Lentil Ragu
- Vegan Spaghetti Sauce
- Vegan Vodka Sauce
- Vegan Eggplant Parmesan
- Vegan Baked Ziti
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Pesto
Ingredients
- ½ cup Pine Nuts (68g)
- ½ cup Walnuts (50g)
- ¼ cup Olive Oil (60ml)
- 1 teaspoon Crushed Garlic
- 2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
- ⅓ cup Nutritional Yeast Flakes (20g)
- 1 cup Fresh Basil Leaves Packed
- ½ cup Fresh Parsley Packed
- ¼ cup Water (60ml)
- ½ teaspoon Sea Salt
- ¼ teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
Instructions
- Add pine nuts, walnuts, olive oil, crushed garlic, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, basil, parsley, water and salt and pepper to the food processor.
- Process until smooth.
- Serve with pasta or on top of pizza or spread on delicious crusty bread. Also makes a great topping for salads or vegetables.
Video
Notes
- Storing. It lasts at least 5 days (and up to a week) in the fridge.
- Freezing. It’s freezer friendly for up to 6 months.
So happy I decided to check out alternate pesto recipes just in case I found one better than the one I have been using for years (from a best selling vegan cookbook author).
Much prefer this lower salt content to the ‘other’ recipe and also the half water half oil makes it lighter and not as heavy.
I am the only pesto lover in our home (husband is a red sauce man) so I freeze it in snack bags and flatten them out for easy freezing and thawing. If you bend the flat frozen pesto when you want to thaw it out you can break it into two pieces and put it into a bowl and not end up attempting to scrape off the thawed yummy pesto from the inside of the snack bag.
So happy to hear you like the recipe Maureen, and thanks for sharing your freezer tips! 🙂
Delicious. First time I made pesto and not sure why I waited so long to try. I didn’t have pine nuts so substituted with raw cashew which was great.
Thanks!
Awesome! So happy to hear it worked out great with cashews too. Thanks for the wonderful review!