• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Healthy Nibbles

simple, healthy recipes for everyone

  • Meet Lisa
  • Recipe Index
  • Dim Sum
  • Contact
  • Nav Social Menu

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • YouTube

Quest for Skinny Pesto Recipe

Feb 10, 2014 7 Comments

I’m probably not alone when I say that I love pesto sauce. Pesto pizza with roasted garlic + potato = awesome. Given my love for pesto, my inclination is to incorporate it into my cooking. I have made pesto sauce by hand before, using a recipe from 101 Cookbooks, and that was a ridiculously laborious process. My hand was hurting from chopping the basil alone.

Recently, I’ve been wanting to make my own pesto sauce again, but was a bit alarmed when I found that most recipes require at least 1/4 of olive oil plus a handful of nuts. While I have no aversion to olive oil or nuts, I wanted to find a lighter version so that I could eat it any time without feeling too heavy. I found a delicious low-fat pesto sauce made by Bolani, East & West Gourmet Afghan Food. If you’ve ever been to a farmers market in Northern California, you will have seen them before passing out tons of free samples of their bolani, sauces, and dips (an excellent sales strategy, by the way). Their sauces are great, but at $6 per tub, they can get pricey pretty soon. So I decided to make a skinny pesto sauce of my own.

The Challenge: Make My Own Skinny Pesto Sauce

I found an oil-free pesto recipe on eat, live, run and adjusted the recipe a bit.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups packed fresh basil leaves
  • 3 garlic cloves
  • 2 TBS white miso paste
  • 2 TBS freshly grated parmesan cheese or nutritional yeast
  • 2 TBS sliced almonds
  • 3 TBS water (you can use more or less water)
  • lemon juice from 1/4 of a lemon

Directions

  1. Blend all the ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Add the water gradually to make sure that you get the right consistency.
  2. Enjoy!

Skinny Pesto Recipe

The Verdict: Pretty Good

I quite enjoyed this pesto. I thought that the miso paste was a bit too strong, so I added almonds in there to neutralize the taste. The original recipe did not call for any almonds. Next time, I will use only 1.5 TBS miso paste.

I used this sauce for my zucchini and summer squash noodles for dinner.

Zucchini Noodles with Skinny Pesto and Tilapia

Yum!

  • Yummly
  • Facebook
  • Email

Gluten Free

Related Posts

  • Creamy Summer Vegetable SoupSummer Creamy Vegetable Soup
  • Banana Peanut Butter Pops | Healthy Nibbles and BitsFive-Ingredient Fridays: Banana Peanut Butter Pops
Previous Post: « Celebrating National Pizza Day
Next Post: Breakfast Nibbles with Bananas »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kristin says

    February 11, 2014 at 1:52 am

    Yummy!! I LOVE pesto sauce so thank you so much for this recipe and for this delicious looking post!!

    Reply
  2. Lisa says

    February 11, 2014 at 10:48 pm

    That’s awesome! Glad I could help!

    Reply
  3. Joey Levin says

    June 26, 2017 at 7:57 pm

    I adored Bolani’s Basil Pesto but cannot find it anymore in SoCal. Is your recipe similar in calories?

    Reply
    • Lisa Lin says

      June 27, 2017 at 7:12 am

      Hi, Joey! I’m not sure how this pesto compares in terms of calories but my recipe does use less oil than many other pesto recipes I’ve seen. I don’t think I’ve answered your question completely but I hope it helps!

      Reply
  4. Ariana - Perez says

    August 22, 2017 at 7:50 pm

    Tried this tonight with pistachio nuts instead (all we had on hand) and vegetable broth instead of water and it was outstanding thank u!!

    Reply
    • Lisa Lin says

      August 22, 2017 at 9:32 pm

      Ariana, thank you so much for trying this recipe! I LOVE the idea of adding pistachios to this! Glad you enjoyed it!

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Hi, I’m Lisa!

Lisa Lin Head Shot
Simple Veggie Smoothies - a FREE E-cookbook with tasty, healthy vegetable smoothies! by Lisa Lin @healthynibs

POPULAR NIBBLES

  • How to Make Bubble Tea - a simple tutorial on how to make bubble tea at home! How to Make Bubble Tea
  • The Easiest Egg Fried Rice (蛋炒飯)
  • How to Make Dumpling Wrappers - a step-by-step guide How to Make Dumpling Wrappers
  • How to Cook Jasmine Rice Three Ways: Stovetop, Slow Cooker & Instant Pot How to Cook Jasmine Rice: Stovetop, Instant Pot & Slow Cooker

AFFILIATE LINKS

Healthy Nibbles is a member of the Amazon Associates Program. From time to time, you will see affiliate links to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a small percentage of qualifying purchases made through affiliate links. The amount that I receive is at no additional cost to you.

Healthy Nibbles © 2014 - 2021 All rights reserved.
DISCLOSURE | PRIVACY POLICY