If there is one food that I could eat everyday – it’s pesto. Pesto is incredibly versatile; not only is it amazing on fresh sprouted flour pasta, but also as a spread on grilled cheese, topped on salmon filets, as sauce on top of homemade sourdough pizza, mixed into butter for a delicious punch of flavor, added into soup – literally, the possibilities are endless!
This recipe for Almond Spinach Basil Pesto is one of my favorites – it is budget friendly since you use more spinach than fresh basil and almonds instead of expensive pine nuts. However, you do not compromise on flavor. This recipe can be doubled or tripled easily, we make big batches of this pesto and freeze it in smaller portions to use throughout the months. Trust me, you will LOVE this!
Almond Spinach Basil Pesto
The Players
- 1 and 3/4 cups organic spinach
- 1 cup fresh organic basil
- 2/3 cup raw almonds, toasted (where to buy raw, sprouted organic almonds)
- 2/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 6 cloves of garlic, peeled
- up to 1 cup cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil (where to buy 100% real olive oil)
- 1 and 1/4 tablespoon organic fresh-squeezed lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon organic lemon zest
- sea salt and pepper to taste (where to buy real sea salt from the U.S.)
The How-To
1. Toast raw almonds on stove-top over medium-low heat until slightly toasted (you should be able to smell their fragrance in the air). Remove from heat and allow to cool.
2. In a food processor, combined toasted almonds, garlic, and lemon zest. Process until roughly chopped.
3. Add remaining ingredients – spinach, basil, cheese, lemon juice, 1/2 cup olive oil, and salt and pepper. Blend until desired consistency, adding more olive oil as needed. (Note: I prefer my pesto on the thicker side, but feel free to make it as thick or thin as you like.)
4. Bam! You’re done – now put it on everything!
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Found your blog when searching for the benefits of kombuncha to share with others. Love the name, following you on Facebook. My self and some other bloggers host a link up called Real Food Fridays, which will go live tonight at 7 central. We seek out other real food bloggers to link up, so we might educate others, love for you to join us. Oh and pinning this recipe.
I’ve been looking for something like this! Do I need to cook the spinach first?
No mam. Just like a basil pesto you’ll want to find the freshest spinach you can find. Only thing cooked in this recipes is the roasted almonds 🙂
teresa was right! No need to cook the spinach. 🙂
Absolutely, I couldn’t live without pesto so this looks too tempting not to try out with spinach and roast almond and a good amount of garlic too it seems! Thanks for these great tips Katie!
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! And thank you for your kind words. 🙂
Hi Katie, I was a strict vegetarian over thirty plus years and raised my children on that diet. Over the past ten years I’ve changed my diet to one that sounds very close to yours, minus cod liver oil, lol. Thank you for sharing dear. Judy
I make this with spinach and basil from my garden and freeze it to enjoy all winter
I have a bag of power greens from Costco; do you think I could use it in place of spinach? Thank you!