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A simple and flavorful nut-free vegan pesto made with love and just a handful of ingredients. It’s ready in just minutes and can be used to bring your dishes to the next level.

Close up shot of a nut-free 6-ingredient vegan sunflower seed pesto! by Sweet Simple Vegan

Who doesn’t love pesto, right? We can slather it on any dish and be well on our way to flavor town.

It’s also fun that you can make pesto from a variety of different nuts and seeds. The most traditional way of making pesto is with pine nuts, but we’ve found that they are often costly. Instead, we like to use either sunflower seeds or almonds because they’re a bit more affordable (especially sunflower seeds).

Ingredients to make an easy nut-free vegan pesto! By Sweet Simple Vegan

For this recipe, we chose to use sunflower seeds because we really enjoy the flavor and consistency they provide. We also always had a bunch of sunflower seeds on hand from after we made our nut-free mac and cheese, so it worked out perfectly.

This vegan pesto is the perfect addition to so many dishes. It’s great on everything from pizza to pasta to sandwiches, and beyond. We actually recently made a vegan chicken pesto pizza with it, and it was so dang good.

Close up shot of a nut-free 6-ingredient vegan sunflower seed pesto! by Sweet Simple Vegan

What’s your favorite way to enjoy pesto? Let us know in the comments below.

If you want some more pesto-centric recipes, here you go:

Make sure you tag usย onย Instagramย @sweetsimpleveganย and @consciouschris and hashtagย #sweetsimpleveganย if you recreate any of ourย recipes, we love toย see your photos!

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Close up shot of a nut-free 6-ingredient vegan sunflower seed pesto! by Sweet Simple Vegan

Easy Nut-Free Vegan Pesto


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  • Author: Jasmine @ Sweet Simple Vegan
  • Total Time: 5 minutes
  • Yield: 1/2 cup

Description

A simple and flavorful nut-free vegan pesto made with love and just a handful of ingredients. It’s ready in just minutes and can be used to bring your dishes to the next level.


Ingredients

  • 1 cup fresh basil, packed
  • 1/3 cup sunflower seeds*
  • 34 cloves of garlic
  • 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
  • Juice of 1/2 of a small lemon (about 1 tablespoon)
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • Salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Into the bowl of a food processor fitted with the S blade, add in the basil, sunflower seeds, garlic , lemon juice and nutritional yeast. Pulse until everything is well combined and coarsely ground, about 30 to 60 seconds.
  2. Next, process everything on high speed and begin to slowly drizzle in the olive oil until you have added the full 1/2 cup. Stop the food processor and season with salt and pepper to taste. Pulse a few more times to combine and then dig in!

Notes

  • If you do not want to use sunflower seeds in this pesto and are okay with using nuts, raw slivered almonds and/or pine nuts also work very well in this!
  • Prep Time: 5 minutes
  • Category: Side, Condiment
  • Method: Food Processor
  • Cuisine: Vegan, Italian

Nutrition facts label provided by Nutri Fox.

Disclaimer:ย The nutritional information shown is an estimate provided by an online calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional’s advice.ย This page may containย affiliateย links, which simply means that we earn a commission if you purchase through those links, but your price remains the same. Thank you for supporting Sweet Simple Vegan!

Meet The Bloggers

hey there! we’re jasmine & chris.

Hi, we’re Jasmine and Chris! We share fresh and fun recipes to show you that vegan cooking is easy, approachable and delicious. When weโ€™re not blogging, you will probably find us enjoying live music, tending to our backyard garden or playing with our dogs Berry and Louie

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