Hey hey lovely people, I hope you’re all having a great week so far! While today isn’t blog-post-day, which is normally Saturday, I’ve been thinking of sharing an additional mid-week blog post every now and again with some of my go-to, absolute fave, ride or die recipes that I actually make ALL THE TIME.

The truth is, while I do try out and test many different products and come up with different recipes regularly, they don’t all make it to ‘ride or die’ fave status! I feel like we all go through phases with food, sometimes we love a dish so I make it every week, sometimes it’s a seasonal thing and sometimes I just forget about the awesome dishes I’ve tried over time!

One thing I’ve been making over and over and over again lately that is super versatile and that you can make in large batches ahead of time is this vegan walnut and sunflower seed pesto!

Here’s how..

Ingredients:

1.5 cups fresh basil – packed

1/2 cup nutritional yeast

1/2 cup walnuts

1/2 cup sunflower seeds1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Method:

Start by dry roasting the walnuts and sunflower seeds – this gives them a lovely roasted, nutty flavor and the heat helps release some of the fats within the nuts and seeds themselves. Just add the walnuts and sunflower seeds to a non-stick pan over medium heat for a few minutes until warmed through and fragrant. Keep an eye on them as they can easily burn. Once toasted, turn off heat and allow nuts and seeds to cool

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Make sure to thoroughly clean the fresh basil. Remove all stems, buds and flowers and just use leaves.

Once nuts and seeds are cool and basil is picked and washed well, simply place all of the ingredients into a food processor or blender (I use my nutribullet for this) and blend until a paste consistency is achieved.

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Store in the fridge for up to 10 days or portion out and freeze. I love using these silicone moulds to freeze these portioned out and ready to go. These are relatively large – I used to use these moulds for brownies; this makes them and ideal size for pesto because I use one block per person for pasta or to use in sauces etc. whenever I need it. You could of course use regular ice trays to do this and use as many as necessary; they last forever in the freezer and make the easiest, yummiest dinner! I love using them with wholegrain pasta, I also add frozen peas and some additional roasted walnuts and seeds on top – perfect 10 minute dinner!

For more similar recipe ideas / 10 min dinner ideas, follow my stories on Instagram & fb (@holisticnutritionninja)

That’s it from me for today – I’ll be back with a new blog post Every Single Saturday 🙂

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Thank you for taking the time to be here and read this ❤️

Until next week, be well xXx