High Protein Vegan Pasta Pesto

Pasta pesto is one of those dishes basically everyone loves. And for good reason. It is easy to make, has loads of flavour and it is ultimate comfort food. For us, this vegan pasta pesto is a dish we like to make mainly during spring and/or summer but of course you can have it year round. Either way, regardless of when you want to make this recipe, it’s going to be delicious! In the end, isn’t that all that matters?

This is by no means a traditional Italian pasta pesto though. Don’t get me wrong, we love traditional food and dishes but what we love even more is to use those dishes as inspiration and make them our own. I hope the Italian community can forgive us for this. We don’t think we’re better than you and we certainly don’t think our style of cooking is better (even if it is). We just like to try new things. So, for this particular vegan pasta pesto recipe, the pesto is made with pumpkin seeds as a base instead of pine nuts and it is made rich and creamy through the addition of an easy home-made vegan ricotta cheese (made with tofu and cashews!). We are all about veggies so obviously we had to add some of those. We absolutely love the combination of sweet cherry tomatoes with this vegan pasta pesto so adding these was a no-brainer. To add some extra greens we are also using some green beans in this recipe. To make this, you will need a foodprocessor and/or a (high speed) blender. We would actually recommend using a food processor to make the vegan ricotta cheese and a blender to make the pesto. However, we don’t own a high speed blender which is why we make the pesto in a foodprocessor ourselves. If you do own a high speed blender, we highly recommend using that to make the pesto.

This is what you will need to make this vegan pasta pesto recipe!

• Homemade Vegan Ricotta Cheese – creamy, delicious and high-protein. Learn how to make your own here.
• Whole Wheat Pasta – we usually prefer using whole wheat pasta over white pasta as it is more nutritious and thus helps to stay full for longer because of the dietary fiber in whole wheat pasta.
• Homemade Vegan Green Pesto – not traditional but no less delicious! Learn how to make your own by clicking here.
• Green Beans – add some extra bite and green color.

• When cooking the pasta, always make sure to check the packaging instructions on how long the pasta needs to cook. We recommend taking 1 to 2 minutes off of that cooking time to ensure the pasta is cooked with still a little bite left (al dente).
• When adding pesto to your pasta, make sure that your pasta is still warm so the pesto is mixed through easily. If you have a bit of trouble mixing it properly, add splashes of water.
• You can cook the green beans in the same water that you’ve used to cook your pasta in. You can even add the green beans to the pasta for the last couple of minutes so they can cook together. This way you don’t have to wait for the pasta to be cooked or use another pot.
• Make sure you use a sharp knife to cut the cherry tomatoes in half. When using a blunt knife, you might have to push hard which will lead to the moisture oozing out of the tomatoes.

• Cherry Tomatoes – we are using the cherry tomatoes raw in this recipe but you can also bake them in the oven or in a skillet, where they will become even more intense and sweet.
• Whole Wheat Pasta – you can use any other type of pasta. Orzo will also work great for example. Pearl couscous also works! Or if you have some leftover bread such as focaccia, you can totally bake that in the oven for a couple of minutes before tossing it through the vegetables, pesto and ricotta.
• Green Beans – some green asparagus, peas or broccolini/bimi will also work great.

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