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Basil Pesto from Fresh Basil Leaves-Vegan Recipe

7/15/2015

Pesto is nothing but a paste. So basil pesto is basically a paste of basil. Basil pesto is a very healthy Italian dip. It can be used as a pasta sauce or a sandwich spread.

Ingredients
A big handful of basil leaves
1/4 to 1/2 cup pine nuts(traditionally). You may substitute with walnuts or cashew nuts. I substituted with sunflower seeds.
Garlic-2-6 cloves
Sea salt for your taste
1 tsp or as required lemon juice
Freshly ground black peppers for your taste
Olive oil- any where from 1 to 4 tbsps.
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese. I substituted with nutritional yeast powder for a vegan option.

Preparation
I roasted sunflower seeds slightly to get the taste out. You may use raw seeds if you want.

Procedure
Take the sunflower seeds into your mixer or food processor and grind them into a fine powder. Then add all other ingredients except olive oil and grind them into a paste. Add olive oil also and grind it one more time to get a fine oily paste. Adjust your salt.
This can be used as a pasta sauce, sandwich spread or a quick spread on your bread toast. This can also be used as a dip for Indian breakfast varieties like Idly, Dosa, Utappam etc. Enjoy!!

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