Vegan Pesto

My daughter MKat started us on the zero-waste path in 2011 at age 16 and soon afterward launched her blog The Plastic-Free Chef. She says my constant complaining about the sea of plastic in grocery stores (and my accompanying lack of action for the most part) inspired her to figure out how to change our routine. When she returned to the olde country (Canada) for university in 2013, she found the plastic-free routine and blog difficult to keep up and stopped writing. This is one of her recipes, reposted with permission. (You can find the original here.)

This pesto gets its cheesy flavor from nutritional yeast, a deactivated yeast that you will likely stumble upon sooner or later if you set out upon the zero-waste path. Look for this yellow crumbly powder in health food stores and bulk bins. I also sprinkle it on popcorn and roll my sourdough cracker dough in it before cutting to add some extra tang. Nutritional yeast really deserves a post of its own…

Vegan Pesto

Ingredients

• 1 bunch basil leaves (about 120 grams or 2 cups packed)
• 2/3 cup walnuts
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup olive oil

Directions

1. Put basil, walnuts, garlic, nutritional yeast and salt in the food processor. Pulse until well combined.

2. With the food processor running, slowly pour in olive oil. Process until smooth. Store in a glass container in the fridge.

Notes

1. Pine nuts are classic for pesto but at $30 a pound, we usually use walnuts and sometimes almonds, depending on what we have on hand. Readers have told me they have had great success with pistachios, cashews and macadamia nuts also.

2. If you have a bit of spinach or parsley that you need to use up, toss it in.

3. This pesto freezes well. We use wide-mouth glass jars for freezing food without plastic.

4. Yes, our food processor has a plastic bowl. It works and I don’t want to simply toss it in the trash.