Pesto is a wonderful dressing for a salad. Basically, you can make pesto out of any nuts, cheese and herbs (or even rocket). The problem for vegans is that even basil pesto is made with Parmesan, and that’s not suitable for vegans. I experimented with various substitutes, and found a perfect combination of ingredients that produces a lovely pesto, with a good flavour and you can’t even tell that there’s no cheese in it. Promise.
I’ve chosen butter beans as the basis for my bean salad, because, well, I love them and they combine well with basil and cashew nuts. The apple, snap peas, spring onion and baby cucumbers I chose for crunch. The cashew nut and sesame seeds add depth of flavour, while the peppery rocket and butter lettuce I added for background oompah. Try this salad, I think that you’ll like the flavours and the vegan pesto.
Ingredients Pesto
~ 2 small cloves of garlic 1 and ½ handfuls of cashew nuts~2 tablespoons of sesame seeds
~1 and ½ tablespoons of lemon juice
~Handful of basil leaves
~¼ cup of olive oil
~½ spring onion
~½ teaspoon of marmite (or nutritional yeast)
~A few white beans (10)
~salt and pepper to taste
Bean Salad
~Handful snap peas
~Tin of butter beans. Drained
~½ pineapple
~½ apple
~1 spring onion
~Handful of rocket leaves
~Handful of butter lettuce leaves
~A few basil leaves
~2 mini cucumbers
~½ cup new beansprouts (mung bean)
~Half a handful of cashew nuts
~1 tablespoons of sesame seeds
Method
Pesto
Put all the ingredients in a blender with the sesame seeds on top and blend until it is smooth.
Salad
Dice the apple, spring onion, snap peas and slice the cucumbers.
Add half the pesto to the butter beans and stir to combine
Tear up the lettuce and rocket leaves
Section out the pineapple and dice the flesh
Combine all ingredients
Decorate a pineapple shell with rocket, add butter lettuce as a base.
Spoon over the bean mixture
Decorate with cashews, sesame seeds and basil leaves
Serve with extra pesto on the side
All images are my own shot with an iPad and edited using Pic Collage and Art Studio