I LOVE pesto. And really, who doesn’t? Let’s look at traditional pesto ingredients:

• Olive Oil
• Basil
• Parmesan Cheese
• Pine Nuts

Simply put, traditional pesto is a mixture of three delicious fats mixed with an herb. It should come then as no surprise that I love it. I would eat pesto every day on everything if I didn’t feel like I was spooning oil into my mouth with each bite. However, those feelings aren’t going to stop me from eating pesto. It’s summer and my tomatoes need pesto, my pasta needs pesto, my sandwiches need pesto… you get the story.

I also have enough basil from my garden to fill my kitchen and nothing sounds better than…. pesto.

This was my attempt at a light pesto sauce that I could make (and eat) weekly. Creamy white northern beans are the perfect sub for olive oil, and walnuts make an inexpensive sub for pine nuts.

Quick weeknight dinner: whole-wheat pasta, halved heirloom cherry tomatoes (thank you EatWell Farms CSA) and pesto.

So, enjoy. A pesto you can eat every day on anything you can get your hands on, without the excess fat.

Ingredients:

3 large bunches basil (About 1-1.5 cups packed basil leaves)
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. nutritional yeast
1 cup white northern beans (Cannelini beans)
1/2 cup walnuts
2 tbsp. water (preferably pasta water if your making this to go with pasta)
1/2 tbsp. white wine vinegar
salt/pepper

Put all of the ingredients in a food processor. Coursely chop until the mixture looks like fine meal. With the blade running, pour in the olive oil and continue to process for ~1 minute until smooth. If the sauce is too thick, slowly add more water.

Eat. Enjoy finding foods you didn’t even know pesto tasted good with.