Basil Pesto Archives - Journey With Healthy Me

Oil Free Basil Pesto

One of the foods that I enjoyed in Italy last year was gluten free pasta with fresh basil pesto. Oh my, that dish quickly became a favorite meal. I’ve tried different plant based packaged pesto mixes in the past year, and while they were good, they couldn’t beat freshly made.

This summer, I grew more basil in my herb garden than I usually do, with the intention of making my own pesto. The plants are big enough and full enough now to snip leaves. After missing lunch today, I created my own fresh oil free basil pesto, for a meal that fell in between lunch and dinner. Lunner? Dinch?

Here’s the recipe I adapted:

Oil Free Basil Pesto

1 cup fresh basil leaves, packed

1/2 ripe avocado

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup cashews

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

3 tablespoons water

Blend basil leaves, avocado, garlic, cashews, and sea salt in food processor or high speed blender, until well combined. Add water a tablespoon at a time, until pesto is smooth and creamy. Serve over pasta or zucchini noodles. Garnish with cherry tomatoes.

I loved snipping basil from the garden for this recipe. This aromatic herb releases its scent whenever you touch the plant and I inhaled deeply as I gathered leaves.

The recipe was extremely easy to prepare. However, I had trouble getting the pesto smooth enough. The blades of my Ninja blender pushed the mixture to the sides and didn’t blend it well enough.

In hindsight, the pesto might have blended better if I had added more water. I was concerned with making it too thin. The other solution is to double the recipe next time so that the blades of my blender have more to bite into.

The result was a rather chunky oil free basil pesto. I prepared raw zucchini noodles with my spiralizer and topped them with my fresh basil pesto and cherry tomatoes from my veggie garden.

My pesto wasn’t the prettiest, in appearance. However, it tasted wonderful. The freshness of the basil was evident and I savored every bite. I have lots of basil growing in the garden. I’ll practice until I perfect fresh oil free basil pesto.

Zucchini Noodles with Basil Pesto

As promised last week, after I introduced my fun new veggie spiralizer, today’s Try This Tuesday post features a basil pesto recipe. I’m including a bonus second recipe as well, because options are good, right?

This easy to prepare recipe is so good! I’ve enjoyed zucchini noodles with basil pesto twice in the last week. And today I topped my noodles with marinara sauce that included sautéed vegetables.

You can read about using a spiralizer HERE.

One medium sized zucchini makes one bowl of noodles. For more servings, simply spiralize more zucchini, or any form veggie of choice.

This recipe, from Thyroid Healing by Anthony William, makes two servings:

Mildly flavored zucchini noodles pair well with sautéed veggies or marinara sauce.

Here’s my favorite home made marinara sauce. This makes a big batch that keeps well in the fridge for a week. I like to sauté green peppers, celery and carrots to add to this basic sauce. The red pepper gives it a bit of a kick. It can be omitted or increased!

I discovered today that marinara sauce with sautéed veggies over zucchini noodles is yummy as well. I added hemp hearts. Now I’m ready to try some different vegetables in the spiralizer!

Order Thyroid Healing and your own spiralizer by clicking the links below:

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Zucchini Noodles Made with a Spiralizer

I have wanted to try a spiralizer, a kitchen tool that creates mounds of noodles from fresh, raw vegetables, since I began this plant based journey. The problem was, I didn’t own a spiralizer! Thanks to my daughter Elissa, who gave me an Amazon gift card for Christmas, I purchased the Zalik 5 blade spiralizer recently and tried it for the first time for lunch today.

I have seen beautiful photos of noodles made from zucchini, cucumber or beets for months. I love trying new recipes, and with veggies being such an important part of my diet, a spiralizer seemed a must. I looked at a variety of models, from very inexpensive to fairly pricey, and settled on a mid priced unit.

The Zalik comes with five interchangeable blades and a brush for cleaning those blades. The unit is made of heavy plastic and it comes apart for easy cleaning. I purchased organic zucchini for my first attempt at making raw veggie noodles.

I cut the ends off of the zucchini and popped it into the unit where it is held securely by prongs. As I turned the handle, while applying slight pressure to keep the zucchini moving forward, noodles curled into the waiting bowl. I used a 2mm blade.

I was like a kid with a new toy! This was fun, turning one medium sized zucchini into a bowl full of noodles. The whole process took less than a minute. And the spiralizer was a cinch to clean up and pack back into its box.

I followed a recipe in Thyroid Healing, by Anthony William, to complete my lunch. I will share the Pesto Zucchini Noodles recipe next Tuesday. Veggie noodles can be tossed with basil pesto, topped with marinara sauce, or combined with cooked or raw veggies.

I added organic cherry tomatoes, freshly made basil pesto, and sprinkled on hemp hearts, sea salt and black pepper. This colorful meal was perfect for lunch. The zucchini noodles were very mild, and soft and pliable, more like pasta noodles than raw veggies. I loved the light fresh taste. Any firm vegetable could be used in place of zucchini.

I am excited to make noodles out of other vegetables and also to make veggie chips and curls, using the different blades. I grow vegetables during the summer months and lots of basil. I look forward to picking fresh basil from my own backyard to create pesto. Homemade potato chips anyone? Sweet potato curls? Cucumber or yellow squash noodles topped with pesto? I’m going to have fun with this spiralizer…and eat well at the same time!

You can order your spiralizer below! And check out Thyroid Healing for amazing recipes and crucial health info.

I am an Amazon Affiliate and may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for considering making a purchase of this product, or any other items, through my Amazon link!