Pistou Sauce or French Pesto ( Vegan )

Vino Girl's Note:

Pistou is the French version of pesto - there are no pine nuts and commonly the parmesan cheese is replaced with coarse salt. Use this any way you'd normally use Italian pesto! Adapted from The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen, by Donna Klein. This recipe was picked for the Freeze It recipe tag game, and I've added the OAMC instructions from Chef Mommy Needs Coffee and the OAMC Forum below.

• Total Time: 15 mins
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 0.75 cup

• 1 cup fresh basil, packed
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• black pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Combine everything in a food processor and process until smooth.
2. Alternatively, you can finely chop the basil and mix it with the other ingredients.
3. Serve on bread, pasta or pizza.
4. OAMC --- To freeze: Place in a quart sized freezer bag. Seal, label and freeze.
5. To thaw: place in fridge overnight or place bag in a bowl of room temperature water for a few minutes.

Reviews

[Enjolinfam]

Wow, this was terrific pesto for such few ingredients! I doubled the recipe and we enjoyed it with some homemade bread. I've never made pesto before because I can't get any pine nuts where I am living now, but this recipe was perfect as is. Thanks for a new regualar!

[Mommy Needs Coffee]

This was great! We deal with multiple food allergies and have to avoid dairy and tree nuts, so this was the perfect recipe for us. I used a blender (no food processor). This would have worked well with a doubled recipe, but there was not enough volume to get a single batch very smooth. I used a mortar & pestle to finish grinding. This was made for "Freeze It!" Tag and it kept beautifully in a quart freezer ziplock bag. I thawed the pistou sauce by placing the bag in a pan of room temperature water for a few minutes. We tossed this with hot thin rice noodles - yum! Just as good as when it was freshly made. Thanks for posting, kburie!