Roasted Vegan Zucchini Pesto Dip

By TAMMY-6

Ingredients

• Ingredients, makes about 2-3 cups pesto:
• 1 medium zucchini/squash
• 2 medium sized garlic cloves
• 2 sundried tomatoes (not oil-packed)
• 27 g (1 ounce) almonds, walnuts OR roasted pine kernels (preferably soaked in water for 2+ hours )
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1-2 cups fresh basil leaves
• A squeeze lemon juice (optional)
• Salt (and pepper) to taste

Details

Servings 1
Adapted from gluten-free-vegan-girl.com

Preparation

Step 1

You can use this pesto for basically anything you would use regular pesto for. It tastes great as a bread spread, in a pasta salad or with some chopped up vegetables and used as a dip. This is a staple for me when making (gluten-free) pasta salad, and if I am in a time-crunch and need to make a fast yet tasty dinner I just cook up brown rice pasta, dry-roast whatever vegetables I have in the fridge (personal favorites are: mushrooms, asparagus, zucchini, sun dried tomatoes and broccoli) and serve along with leaf spinach and of course the pesto.

Ingredients, makes about 2-3 cups pesto:

Directions:

Heat up a non-stick pan at high temperature and roast thinly sliced zucchini on both sides until they turn a deep brown.

Blend together the sun dried tomatoes, garlic cloves, and soaked nuts using a blender/food processor. So far I have only used almonds and pine kernels, but I think walnuts will work just as good. If you use almonds they should be covered in water in a bowl and soaked for at least 2 hours, whereas the pine kernels or walnuts can be used right away without any soaking.

Add in the zucchini and blend until smooth. Start adding in the basil leaves, tasting as you do so until you are satisfied and then add the nutritional yeast. If you do not have nutritional yeast you can probably substitute it for 1 tsp vegan vegetable stock powder or just skip it altogether.

Taste when adding salt, freshly ground black pepper and (optionally) a bit lemon juice.

When eating this with pasta you can add approx. 2-3 tbsp per serving of pasta, simply by adding it after the pasta is cooked and drained of water. This can probably stay fresh for up to one-two weeks in the fridge if stored in an airtight container.

hey im so glad i found your amazing blog.. i finally tried the pesto at first (i’ll use it for your pasta salad tomorrow; so im excited!) and after taste-testing i might say this is divine.. but it didnt turn out as creamy as yours.. do you also add the water you soaked the nuts in? i drained them.. or do you rehydrate the tomatoes? anyway thank you for sharing your recipe & best wishes!

I am so happy to hear you found it to your liking! If necessary, you can gradually add in water to make it more creamy. I did not use the soaking water nor did I rehydrate the tomatoes. The lemon juice usually adds enough liquid for it to become creamy

Hi there, and welcome to my blog. My name is Solveig Berg Vollan, and I am a 18 year old girl from Norway. On this site I post my own recipes, all of which are vegan, gluten-free and completely healthy! Not sure what to make first? Look through my