Basil spinach almond pesto

(Vegan) Basil spinach almond pesto. Don’t have pine nuts? Or parmesan? No problem! You can still make a basil pesto spread, no cheese or pine nuts required!

Part 1 of my “make everything from scratch” meal was making homemade puff pastry.

Part two… pesto!

I’ll admit I never made pesto from scratch before, so when I realized that two of the seemingly important ingredients (parmesan cheese and pine nuts) were missing in my kitchen, I decided to try something different.

I struggled a bit (#foodbloggerproblems) with how to name this recipe. Almond pesto? Basil almond pesto? Spinach basil pesto with surprise ingredient? It’s easy to go overboard with listing every ingredient in the title, though I decided for this, all the ingredients were important to list since they are not all found in the typical pesto recipe.

Basil is one of the few things I seem to have been able to keep alive in my garden but my little leaves are so small, it didn’t yield me as much as I thought it would. So I added spinach!

The result was still missing something, so I threw some almonds in since they were the only nut I had available at the time. It helps to add that extra crunch!

One word I did leave off the title was “skinny,” but it totally can be if you only add a little bit of oil like I did (I wanted to keep it pretty thick). If you want more liquid, add more oil or water to get the consistency you want!

Use it as a sauce, dip, over pasta, or be like me and put it on some puff pastry.

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Yield: 1 cup

Basil spinach almond pesto

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(Vegan) Basil spinach almond pesto. Don't have pine nuts? Or parmesan? No problem! You can still make a basil pesto spread, no cheese or pine nuts required!

Prep Time 5 minutes

Total Time 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves
• 2 cups fresh spinach leaves
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 garlic clove
• 1/2 lemon, , juiced
• salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Add all ingredients in food processor.
2. Blend until combined.

Notes

It will be pretty thick, so if you want to make it thinner, add more water or olive oil until you reach desired consistency.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 485Total Fat: 41gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 34gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 553mgCarbohydrates: 23gFiber: 13gSugar: 3gProtein: 18g

Nutrition information is calculated automatically by an online tool at Nutritionix. It is not always accurate. Please use your own tools to check if you rely on this information.