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    Home » Recipes » Vegan Recipes

    Spinach and Basil Pesto

    Published: Jun 5, 2012 · Updated: Aug 2, 2021 · This post may contain affiliate links.

    Spinach, in combination with basil, makes a less intensely-flavored pesto sauce. Some may enjoy this milder flavor, whether served traditionally on pasta, or as a topping for potatoes or an offbeat dressing for potato salad, on grains, or as a garnish for soup.

    Makes about 1 ½ cups (enough for 10 to 12 ounces of pasta)

    • ½ to 1 cup firmly packed basil leaves, to taste
    • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
    • Juice of ½ lemon, or more, to taste
    • 1 to 2 cloves garlic, crushed, optional
    • ¼ cup pine nuts or ½ cup walnut halves
      (or omit nuts if you'd like a less caloric pesto)
    • 6 ounces baby spinach, rinsed and drained,
      or regular spinach, stemmed, chopped, and well washed
    • Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

    Combine all the ingredients except the salt and pepper in a food processor and pulse on and off until the mixture is a coarse, even puree. You may need to add the spinach in batches if your processor has a small or medium-sized container.

    Stop the machine and season gently with salt and pepper; taste to see if you'd like to add more lemon juice. Serve at once — stir into hot cooked pasta or use as suggested above in the headnote.

    Basil pesto recipe for pasta

    • Explore more way to enjoy spinach.
    • Here are lots more recipes for simple sauces and such.

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    nicole malik from vegkithen.com

    Hi, I'm Nicole! I'm the creator behind VegKitchen, and the author of the popular cookbook, Weeknight One Pot Vegan Cooking. Learn more about me here.

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