Vegan Pesto With Scallions

Homemade Vegan Pesto made with basil, cashews and scallions. This pesto is deliciously simple because it takes only 5 minutes to make and needs very few ingredients.  Use in pasta or noodles.

If I could eat pesto everyday, I would be happy.

Pesto turns a “blah” dish into “wow” dish instantly.

Tips for making this pesto

– If you have time, soak the cashews overnight

– The scallions can be roughly chopped before being added to the blender

– I used a little extra garlic in this recipe, but, you can adjust it to your taste

– Store this vegan pesto in a glass jar and it will last longer.  I store mine in this (affiliate link) air-tight mason jar container.

– Refrigerate it after making the pesto and it will have a longer shelf life.  It should taste fresh for 3 weeks

Making pesto for vegans

The traditional basil pesto recipe is not vegan because it uses Parmesan cheese.  Isn’t that just a bummer?

Not wanting vegans to loose out on eating delicious pesto, I came up with a way to substitute the Parmesan cheese ingredient. I used cashews and nutritional yeast in this recipe to make it vegan friendly.

Refrigerating scallion pesto

Yes, you can easily refrigerate this homemade vegan basil pesto.  Put it in a sealed mason jar and refrigerate it

It will last you about 3 weeks when you refrigerate this pesto.

No pine nuts? No worries!

Yes, you can make this basil pesto without pine nuts.  The cashews will be sufficient, just add about 1 Tbsp extra cashews.

Pine nuts are delicious, but, EXPENSSSSIVE, right? It’s also not easy to find in all stores. So, sub it with cashews and maybe a a pinch of extra nutritional yeast.

If you want the classic version, check out this Genovese pesto sauce recipe by Tia Clara.

What to make with vegan pesto?

Ok, now that you have cooked up the PERFECT pesto, what’s next?

Use it in a delicious recipe right away!

This pesto can be good in so many wonderful dishes.  It’s so delicious in pasta, as a sandwich spread and even as a dip. You can also convert it into a pesto aioli and use it for grilling.

My favorite is with gnocchi, but, here are so many other recipes that are perfect.

• Tomato Sandwich
• Vegan Orecchiette Pasta
• Roasted Potatoes with Pesto
• Mushrooms and Wild Rice
• Potato Salad with Greens
• Flatbread Pizza with Cherries
• Corn on the Cob

Other quick pesto recipes

• Arugula pesto

• Tomato pesto

• Cilantro pesto

• Roasted red bell pepper pesto

Just like my chocolate smoothie bowl, this vegan pesto recipe came to me as a late night inspiration on a Saturday.   I often tease coming recipes on my instagram stories.  Here are some of my past “coming soon” stories and there is always more to come.

If you have scallions left over, how about turning them into a scallion pancake recipe?  Extra basil makes for a perfect vegan basil butter.

Version 1 of this recipe

Occasionally, I will go back into older recipes and update them for SEO purposes and just to refresh them, especially the images. Today, I got to do a complete overhaul of my old vegan pesto recipe

This recipe was originally published on January 27th, 2017 at 11:04pm.  The original recipe was very different from version 2 recipe.  It was made with chives and strawberries.  This recipe received no traction from my readers, so, I thought I should re-do it completely.

I will let you go now, so, you can make this vegan pesto recipe.  Send me pics of it and be sure to rate the recipe below after you make it.  I love to hear from you.

Note about the Version 2 image: I am not a fan of dark food photography, but, I thought I would give it a try.  I have only done a few dark food photos (Like this Mexican Hot Chocolate Popsicles), but, its not in my wheelhouse.  I think food should be bright and vibrant.  So, what do you think of the dark food images?  Would you like to see more of them?