Arugula Almond Pesto

A simple recipe for Arugula Almond Pesto designed to enliven soups, stews, cassoulets, sandwiches, and pasta dishes. It’s vegan and made without pine nuts– adding a delicious peppery brightness to dishes you are already making! 

This is one of the oldest recipes on the blog and I’m bringing it all the way to the front because of how useful I think you’ll find it. I first shared on this Heirloom Tomato Sandwich almost 10 years ago but I feel it deserves a little emphasis. Plus, I pull it out all the time at home so I thought you might want to too. 😉

Arugula Almond Pesto is bright, peppery, and complex and brings dishes you are already making, to their happy place.  It really elevates!

It loves to be paired with lasagna, beans, lentils, and casserole-y things, or lathered into sandwiches, tossed with pasta, sauteed veggies or roasted veggies, or spooned over your morning eggs.

In our catering business, we found so many people had pinenut allergies, we began making our pesto without pinenuts. Almonds were the perfect substitution!

So here we are using almonds instead of pinenuts (although pine nuts are fine too), arugula, a little basil, garlic, lemon zest and olive oil.

I intentionally leave the cheese out here to keep it vegan,  but feel free to add.

This arugula pesto recipe only takes about 5 minutes. Just place everything in a  food processor and pulse.

It makes one cup –  a small manageable batch that can easily be repurposed during the week.

One tip: Make sure your olive oil is light and not overly bitter. The arugula adds its own bit of bitterness, but you’ll find it will mellow out after an hour or so, and when combined with food is quite pleasant.

To freeze the arugula pesto, place it in a small jar, cover the pesto with a thin layer of lemon juice to preserve its vibrant color. Thaw in the fridge overnight.

Hope you enjoy this simple recipe for Arugula Almond Pesto! Let us know how you use it!

xoxo

Sylvia

Use Arugula Pesto on: 

• Heirloom Tomato Basil Sandwich
• Simple Tomato Soup
• Tomato Zucchini Gratin
• Lentils with Blistered Tomatoes and Kale
• Simple Roasted Vegetables
• Bucatini Pasta with Arugula Pesto & Heirloom Tomatoes
• Brothy Tortellini Soup w/ Spinach, White Beans & Basil
• Farmers Market Vegetable Soup

Arugula Almond Pesto

★★★★★ 5 from 2 reviews

• Author: Sylvia Fountaine| Feasting at Home
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Total Time: 10 mins
• Yield: 1 cup
• Category: sauces, condiments,
• Method: blended
• Cuisine: American
• Diet: Vegan

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Description

A delicious easy recipe for Arugula Almond Pesto designed to enliven soups, stews, cassoulets, sandwiches and pasta dishes. It’s vegan and made with almonds, basil and lemon zest adding a peppery brightness to dishes you are already making! 

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Ingredients

• 1 large garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup toasted almonds,  pinenuts  or smoked almonds
• 1/2 cup packed basil leaves
• 1 cups packed arugula
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/3–1/2 cup light flavored olive oil(make sure oil is not bitter)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt (if your almonds are heavily salted, use salt to taste.)
• 1/4 cracked pepper

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Keywords: arugula pesto, almond pesto, vegan pesto, dairy free pesto, how to freeze pesto, pesto without pine nuts, pesto with almonds

Hey, I'm Sylvia! Professional chef, former restaurant owner and caterer, here is where I share hundreds of seasonal, globally-inspired, VEGGIE-DRIVEN recipes.Let's start cooking together! Subscribe to my latest recipes and get my free, PLANT-BASED RECIPE GUIDE.

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