The Best Vegan Pesto Sauce Recipe

Name: The Best Vegan Pesto Sauce Recipe
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 10 min
Ingredients: 2 cup Fresh basil leaves; 1/4 cup Pine nuts; 2/3 cup Extra virgin olive oil; 2 cloves Garlic

Jump to Recipe Print Recipe

Here you’ll find a recipe for vegan pesto sauce that you’ll love! It’s fresh, quick, easy to make, and doesn’t require a lot of ingredients. Bonus: it only takes 10 minutes to make!

vegan basil pesto in glass dish surrounded by pine nuts and basil on marble surface

Table of Contents

Why make this recipe?

Light – The fresh ingredients of this vegan pesto sauce recipe make it so light, unlike other pasta sauces that tend to be heavy, like Alfredo sauce.
Simple – This recipe only calls for a few ingredients, doesn’t use a lot of equipment, and is quick to make.
Dairy-free – Pesto sauce typically has parmesan cheese in it, but this plant-based version does not. I don’t even miss cheese in it because it already has so much flavor without it.

Ingredient notes

individual ingredients for vegan pesto sauce recipe on a white marble background

Pine nuts – If you are unable to use pine nuts for this recipe, you can swap them out for walnuts, pecans, almonds, or sunflower seeds.
Basil – The basil can be substituted for kale or spinach if you’d prefer to use one of those instead.

Step By Step Instructions

Step 1 – Peel the garlic.

Note: This post may contain affiliate links, which means if you buy from my link I might make a small commission. This does not affect the price you pay. See the full affiliate disclosure here.

two cloves of garlic that have been peeled

Step 2 – Put all of the ingredients into the food processor.

basil, garlic cloves, pine nuts and olive oil in a food processor

Step 3 – Blend it all together in the food processor until it is smooth.

all of the pesto ingredients all blended up in the food processor

Tips and tricks

homemade vegan pesto sitting in glass dish on marble surface

If you miss having cheese in your pesto sauce, try adding a little nutritional yeast to the recipe.
I love buying a basil plant instead of a batch of picked basil. You will get a lot more basil from it. I love to harvest it, then keep growing the plant so I can make it again when it grows back. This video will show you how to harvest basil.
Pine nuts can be expensive. I recommend buying them from the bins where you can scoop out the amount you need instead of buying them prepackaged. This usually makes it a little cheaper.