Seriously, who doesn’t love pesto? 

The first recorded recipe for pesto was from Giovanni Bastista Ratto in the Middle Ages, and his recipe was a simple mix of garlic, basil and cheese. Somewhere over the years, we’ve added pine nuts, lemon, and a bunch of other ingredients. 

This plant-based version includes a few of those additives and replaces the pine nuts with activated almonds to kick it up a notch (both nutritionally and flavourwise).  

As for the whole 'activated' component, turns out nuts also benefit from soaking before consumption — just like when you soak grains and legumes. 

The process of activating consists of soaking the nuts to release acids and enzyme prohibitors that limit us from absorbing more nutrients. We, therefore, get all the zinc, calcium and magnesium they have to offer. Activating also makes the nutrients more accessible for our bodies to digest. If it sounds all too confusing and you can't really be bothered, don't worry, we've done the hard work of soaking and dehydrating the almonds for you here at Kitz. 

This pesto is one of those condiments you can nearly put on anything. Serve it traditionally with pasta, dollop it over roasted veggies, dip your crackers in, put it on your toast, fry an egg in it, mix it through a salad. The options are endless. We’ve gone the traditional pasta route here, but you do you. 

Ingredients:

• 3 cups packed fresh basil leaves (if you don’t have this much basil or if you want to spice things up, then you can use a mix of herbs here - rocket, coriander, parsley all work well)
• 1/2 cup Kitz Activated Almonds
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast (to make it cheesy)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup olive oil

Method:

1. Add all ingredients except for olive oil into a food processor. If you like your pesto chunky, hold back half of the almonds until the rest of the ingredients are blended and them add them last and pulse until you’ve reached your desired consistency.
2. Once it’s almost done, stir in the olive oil and mix until it is dispersed through the mix.
3. Serve with the pasta of your choice. Or anything else!

Buy our Activated Almonds here