Pantry Pesto With Dried Basil (Vegan!)
When it comes to a flavorful, shelf-stable pesto, you don’t need to look any further than your own pantry. Toss with a generous glug of olive oil on cooked pasta and chicken, or use it as a marinade with a bit of olive oil or as a dry rub. You can even use it to season roasted vegetables. A good rule-of-thumb is 1-2 Tablespoons of pesto per serving, but it's really personal preference. Adjust to taste or add more as needed.Store this dried basil pesto in an airtight container in a cool, dark cupboard for up to 3 months. Always give it the sniff test before you use it — nuts have oils in them and can go rancid if not stored properly. You can also store this dried basil pesto it in the refrigerator or freezer for up to 6 months. Just like fresh pesto, you can freeze this dried pesto in ice cube trays with enough olive oil to cover the herbs. Drop the frozen cubes right into a hot skillet or pot of pasta to use them. That sort of defeats the "shelf stable" part of this recipe, but it is an option!
Ingredients
- ½ cup dried basil
- ½ cup dried parsley flakes
- ¼ cup whole walnuts (chopped)
- ¼ cup whole almonds (chopped)
- ¾ teaspoon garlic powder (or 1-2 cloves garlic)
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast
- ½ teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt (use half as much of another brand)
Instructions
- Combine nuts in the bowl of a mini food processor. Process on low speed, pulsing on and off, until finely chopped.
- Add the rest of the ingredients — basil, parsley, nutritional yeast, and salt — and pulse a few more times until you have a fine powder.
- Transfer to an airtight container and store in a cool, dark place for up to 3 months at room temperature, or up to 6 months in the fridge or freezer.
- To make this without a food processor: Chop the nuts very finely with a knife. Or place them in a bag and run a rolling pin over them to crush them and then chop them until they're as small as you can get them. Stir the remaining ingredients in with the chopped nuts.
- Serving option 1: Toss with cooked pasta, chicken/protein/veggies along with a large glug or two of olive oil, enough to get the dried pesto mixture to stick.
- Serving option 2: Cook pasta according to al dente package directions. Reserve ½ cup of pasta water, strain pasta and return to pan over medium heat along with any veggies/chicken/protein. Add a glug of olive oil, a few tablespoons of the pesto blend, and half of the reserved pasta liquid. Add ½ cup grated parmesan cheese and stir until the pesto uniformly coats the pasta in a sauce. Add additional pasta water if needed to thin out the sauce.
Nuts have oil in them and if you run the processor too long, you risk them turning into nut butter. The idea is just to chop the nuts fairly finely. That way you don't have to run it much longer once you add the rest of the ingredients to break the nuts down
RECIPE NOTES
- If starting with whole nuts, toast them before processing to get a more intense flavor. To toast, place whole nuts on a sheet tray in the oven at 350F for 5-10 mins, stirring every 2-3 minutes.
- The original version of this recipe called for 1-2 cloves of minced garlic instead of garlic powder. You can also use pine nuts in place of almonds and walnuts. Pine nuts are more traditional to pesto, but also more expensive, which is why I stuck with walnuts and almonds here.
- While you can use this with any pasta shape, I recommend ones with lot of crevices and texture and twists to help the pesto evenly coat the pasta instead of clumping or sliding off. It's great with twisted pasta shapes like fusilli, cavatappi, and gemelli. And also with tube-shaped pastas like penne and your classic macaroni elbows.