I’ve been getting into making green pesto, recently and so I thought I ought to give a vegan red pesto pasta a try. The results were very rewarding. In the past, I’ve often just reached for the jar of Sacla vegan red pesto. But home-made pesto has a freshness that you just can’t get with pesto from a jar.
I’m not a snob about making everything from scratch – sometimes it’s just not practical. With say a Thai curry, it’s just not that convenient to buy all the individual ingredients for spice mix. Something like a red pesto though is so ridiculously easy that it’s a crime not to make it yourself. You should have most of the ingredients already in a well stocked kitchen. Even the roasted red peppers are easy to do in the oven when you have it on for something else. If not, a quick blast in the actifry will suffice to produce good roasted peppers. Sun dried tomatoes – yes, ok, just buy some – but fresh basil is easily available.
You just put all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse blend them to get the right texture. That is all that’s needed for great tasting red pesto. With the pasta side of things, I’ve matched the quantity of organic wholewheat pasta to the amount of pesto. I’ve added in some Linda McCartney sausages, roasted peppers, courgettes, red onions, and baby plum tomatoes to complete the mix.
I put any of this pasta dish that’s left of over in pyrex dishes to freeze for later use. You can add a few extra things at this point like black olives and capers. I then pour some cheese sauce out of the freezer over it, and cover it with cling film. Some grated vegan cheese and wholemeal bread-crumbs on top finishes it off. Then you have a pasta bake to whip out of the freezer when you need something quick and easy. This vegan red pesto pasta goes well with a simple green salad, fresh hummus and of course garlic bread.
vegan red pesto pasta
Ingredients
For the red pesto
- 150 g sun dried tomatoes
- 150 g roasted red peppers
- 40 g Olive oil
- 30 g bag of fresh basil just use the leaves
- 15 g crushed garlic - 4 good sized cloves crushing or slicing first avoids big lumps in the final pesto
- 50 g lightly toasted pine nuts 10 mins at 150°C
- 10 g nutritional yeast
- 25 g vegan parmesan I use violife vegan parmesan or you can increase the nutrional yeast to compensate if you prefer.
- 25 g lemon juice optional but helps balance the acidity.
- zest whole lemon optional
- 20 g green olives approx 4 large olives - optional
- 1/2 teasp smoked or regular sea salt
- 1/2 teasp teasp black pepper
- 2 teasps smoked paprika or ordinary paprika optional - but it adds colour and richness
- 50 g tomato puree
For the pasta and veggies part
- 250 g wholewheat fusilli pasta
- 6 whole vegan sausages I like Linda McCartney, but any will do except quorn.
- 2 whole red peppers can use an orange or yellow and red pepper
- 1 whole smallish courgette optional
- 1 whole large red onion
- 300 g baby plum tomatoes can use cherry tomatoes
- 60 g black olives cut in half
- 50 g pine nuts lightly roasted 5 mins at 150°C
Instructions
- Weigh all the pesto ingredients directly into the food processor.
- Pulse blend them until you have the right texture – don’t overdo it. Put the finished pesto in the fridge while you do the rest
- For this dish, I definitely think the Actifry is by far the easiest method. Because you can be cooking one lot of veggies while you're chopping the next lot. Slice the red onions like this, and give them 5 minutes in the actifry.
- Then add in the peppers sliced like this (and courgette if you’re using it). You can also add the vegan sausages at this point and give the whole lot around 12 more minutes. If the veggies aren’t quite done, fish the sausages out and give the other veggies a few minutes more.
- Cook the tomatoes separately to the peppers because they would get too bashed about by the other veggies. Give them around 12 minutes
- If you don't want to cook the sausages with the peppers and onions, do them on their own for 12 minutes.
- Meanwhile cook the pasta for 10 minutes – don’t overcook – it still needs a little bit of bite to it. Use a generous amount of boiling water, lightly salted and with a dash of oil to help keep the pasta separate.
- Add the pesto to the drained pasta and mix well.
- Slice the sausages in half, then into 5 smaller pieces.
- Heat up the veggies in the microwave if they have cooled down.
- Then combine all the ingredients in the pan you cooked the pasta in.
- Serve with hummus, salad and garlic bread.
Notes
- if making the gnocci version of this use between 175 & 200g with 500g of gnocci. Because the gnocci doesn't hold the pesto, you need less.
- with the pasta version with 250g of pesto you won't need the full amount of pesto - more like half - which leaves you half to freeze and use later.
- I've used a whole pack of sundried tomatoes which is why this makes a larger quantity, if you want to make just egough, halve the quantities.
