Basic Raw Vegan Basil Pesto Recipe

The following recipe for a basic raw vegan basil pesto goes well on spiralized veggie noddles (e.g., zucchini, carrots, turnips, yam-style sweet potatoes) and on raw broccoli or cauliflower and combinations of those types of vegetables (for more on how to better enjoy raw broccoli, check out my earlier post entitled Raw Organic Broccoli – It’s All About The Sauce!). For example, for dinner this evening I had the pesto over a combination of cut cauliflower florets and broccolini (a cross between broccoli and kai-lan). The evening before I had the pesto served over spiralized organic turnips and yam-style sweet potato. The following is an adaptation of the basil pesto recipe you can find in Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine by Gabriel Cousens and the Tree of Life Café Chefs (available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca). I’ve cut the volume in half so that it’s more appropriate if you’re making the pesto for 1 or 2 people.

Special Equipment

• Food processor or blender. A mini-prep food processor or small blender works great for the volume.

Ingredients

• 1/2 -3/4 cup organic raw pine nuts
• 1/4 cup fresh de-stemmed organic fresh basil
• 2 Tbsp organic unfiltered cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil
• 1-2 Tbsp organic lemon juice
• 1-2 cloves of organic garlic
• 1 tsp Celtic sea salt or Himalayan salt.
• 1/4 cup filtered water, reserved.

Directions

1. Add all the ingredients to the food-processor or blender. Pulse the mixture in food-processor or blender, adding 1 Tbsp of water at a time to help facilitate blending and in order to reach the desired consistency for the sauce.
2. Serve & Enjoy

The pesto should keep for about 2-3 days sealed in the fridge. As mentioned earlier, the pesto makes a nice dressing for spiralized vegetables noodles. Here in Vancouver, you can purchase spiralizers at OrganicLives, Gorilla Food, Eternal Abundance, and from various other places and people (e.g., Katherine Marion aka the Rawsome Chef).

Some other notes:

• If you plan on serving this pesto with a dish that you’ll bring to a potluck, consider de-veining the garlic. Some people find raw garlic too intense. By de-veinging the garlic, they’ll enjoy your dish a lot more. When making the pesto for myself, I usually don’t remove the garlic vein as raw garlic doesn’t give me any problems.
• You can get organic raw pine nuts, organic unfiltered cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, and Himalayan salt from OrganicLives.

Please share your modifications and improvements to the recipe in the comments section of this post.

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• Raw Organic Broccoli – It’s All About The Sauce!
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• Raw Vegan Caesar Dressing Recipe
• Raw Vegan Cauliflower “Mashed Potatoes”