Sunday 16 May 2010

Nut-free Pesto

My nut allergy counts out pesto, so I was thrilled to find a recipe that doesn't use nuts! And without the nuts and with no added cheese, it's lower in fat than the standard version, too :-)


Makes: A jar full
Takes: 5 minutes

Ingredients

1 can white beans (eg cannellini or haricot) - about 200g
1 clove garlic or 1 tsp garlic puree
60g fresh basil leaves (see notes below)
1/2 tsp salt
100 ml olive oil
black pepper

Method
  1. Drain and rinse the beans and put into a food processor with all the other ingredients.
  2. Process until smooth, decant into a jar and store in the fridge.
Notes: I have no idea how much basil weighs 60g. I buy a pot of 'growing basil' from the supermarket and use all the leaves from that (and a bit of stalk usually goes in too!) and that seems to work fine.
This keeps in the fridge for a few days. Try not to push it to the back of the fridge and forget about it though as it goes a strange colour after a couple of weeks or so...