Vegan Arugula Pesto

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You don't need expensive basil, pine nuts, or even cheese to make delicious pesto! The essentials for a good pesto are greens of some kind, nuts of some kind, garlic, and lemon juice. This recipe uses arugula, but you can use whatever you've got.

Course Dressing, Sauce

Cuisine Italian

Diet Vegan, Vegetarian

Keyword spring

Prep Time 5 minutes

Servings

Calories 416kcal

Author Katie's Conscious Kitchen

Equipment

Ingredients

3 cups arugula
3/4 cup chopped nuts e.g. pine nuts, walnuts, almonds, pistachios, pecans, macadamia nuts, cashews, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, etc.
1 tbsp lemon juice or lime juice
1/4 cup olive oil or other neutral flavored vegetable oil such as canola, avocado, or grapeseed
2 garlic cloves 3 for a punchier pesto
1/2 tsp sea salt more to taste

Instructions

Add everything except the olive oil into a food processor. Pulse until everything is finely-chopped.
With the food processor running, drizzle in the olive oil slowly until the mixture is combined. Puree until smooth, scraping down the sides as needed. If the pesto is too thick, thin it out with a tablespoon or two of olive oil or water.
Taste and season with sea salt and black pepper until the flavors shine. You can also reserve a few tablespoons of nuts to add in at the end for a chunkier pesto.

Notes

Feel free to swap the arugula for basil, parsley, kale, mint, cilantro, chervil, arugula, dandelion greens, broccoli, broccoli rabe, collards, mustard greens, radish tops, carrot tops, garlic scapes, beet greens, spinach, watercress, pea shoots, or any greens you've got on hand!

Nutrition