This quick and easy basil pesto with whole foods is prepared in no time. You can easily combine it with your favourite ingredients.
Pasta is one of the dishes that I could cook anytime. That's why pesto is one of my main pasta dishes. Usually, I build it from scratch with fresh ingredients.
This variant of pesto focuses on very bright aromas and a slightly sour and refreshing flavour thanks to the lemon zest. This perfectly rounds up the aroma from fresh basil, tempeh and artichokes.
How to make basil pesto
The traditional and authentic way to prepare pesto is by using a mortar and pestle. Add basil, pine kernels, garlic, olive oil, and salt to the mortar and slowly crush everything. It might help to add the basil little by little if your mortar doesn't hold everything. Crushing helps breaking cells open and let the juice come out.
If you prefer doing a quick pesto, use a traditional blender. Add all ingredients and blend on high speed for a couple of seconds until everything is smooth and even.
Going whole
I recommend not to stop with just the pesto. Adding some fresh veggies and leafy greens gives you a higher variety in texture and also adds a good share of nutrients to the whole plate. After all, it's a basil pesto with whole foods - so make sure to add some goodness.
I personally love to add fresh rucola/rocket as it brings a decent spicy bite and a little bitterness through its mustard oils contents. To counterbalance the bite the artichokes come to play - their tender texture and bright aromas perfectly round up the flavour signature of the whole plate.
If you follow the recipe's ingredients, you also include all out out of the five vegan food groups. This gives you a good head start to get your daily variety of food sources covered with just one dish. In other words, its a good companion for a balanced diet.
I absolutely recommend making good use of nutritional yeast here. This brings in the cheesy flavor that a classic pesto usually offers. Make sure to add the noosh when the dish is finished and does no longer cook. Otherwise you risk to break down many of the B-Vitamins through heat.
What are your favourite ingredients for a pesto? Let me know in the comments.
Bon appetit and: Cheers!
Basil pesto with fried Tempeh and Artichokes
Equipment
- Mortar
- Blender
Ingredients
The Pesto
- 70 g fresh basil
- 1 garlic clove
- 30 g pine seeds
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- nutmeg
The Rest
- 200 g whole grain spaghetti
- 160 g tempeh
- 50 g cherry tomato
- 10 g rucola
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 80 g artichokes
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Get some water for the pasta boililng and cook the pasta following the instructions on the package.
- Meanwhile take care of the pesto. Either toss the ingredients into a mortar, or, if you want to be quick, put everyting into a blender
- Cut the tempeh into smaller chunks and start frying them crispy with some oil. Cut the tomatoes and put them aside.
- Once the pasta is boiled, add them to the pan with the Tempeh. Pour the fresh pesto blend in and mix until evenly distributed.
- Combine the pasta with the rest of the fresh ingredients and sprinkle some noosh on the plate. That's it
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Nutrients per serving
