This fresh and healthy vegan broad bean pesto is deliciously summery! Broad beans (aka fava beans) make a wonderful chunky pesto sauce, and beautifully marry up with the lemon, garlic and basil flavours. This makes an easy vegetarian and vegan pasta meal.

vegan broad bean (fava bean) pesto

Summertime is upon us, and our weekly vegetable box has finally broken out of its carrots, red cabbage, beetroot and potatoes rut. Welcome back basil, welcome back broad beans. We are so happy to see you again!

Enter broad bean pesto, the star of my summertime kitchen. It’s vegan, creamy, garlicky, lemony, green and awesome. It is chunkier than your average pesto, which means it can hold it’s own in a bowl of pasta without really needing anything else.

We had it with parpadelle. You might like to try it with angel hair spaghetti, to keep things even more light and summery. Or ditch the pasta and use it as a dip for veggies at your next barbecue, if you are feeling ridiculously healthy.

Summer can do that to a person.

  • broad beans
  • vegan broad bean / fava bean pesto

 I have made this recipe a handful of times now to get the recipe just so. It’s always good, even if you need to adjust the amounts a little to what you have on hand. Less pine nuts can be compensated for with more broad beans and vice versa. Just don’t skimp too much on the garlic or lemon- without any cheese, these are your big flavors.

One variation that I tried and loved was to add an avocado at the end. If you want to ramp up the creaminess, this is an excellent way to go.

vegan broad bean pesto

Vegan Broad Bean Pesto Pasta

This fresh and healthy vegan broad bean pesto is deliciously summery! Broad beans (aka fava beans) make a wonderful chunky pesto sauce, and beautifully marry up with the lemon, garlic and basil flavours. This makes an easy vegetarian and vegan pasta meal.
3 -4 servings (enough for one package of pasta)
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
4.50 from 10 ratings
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Ingredients

  • 4 Tbsp toasted pine nuts
  • 3 garlic cloves
  • Juice of 1 large lemon
  • ¾ cup (100 g) cooked broad beans, leave the skins on
  • 4 Tbsp olive oil
  • Handful of basil

Instructions 

  • Add the pine nuts, garlic cloves and broad beans to the food processor and pulse until chunky.
  • Add the lemon juice and basil, pulse a few more times before adding the basil and olive oil.
  • Blend until it becomes creamy, but do not allow it to puree too much- it is nice with lots of chunk!

Notes

Suggestion: for added creaminess, add a ripe avocado to the mix!
Nutritional ingredients calculated on the basis that this is mixed with 1 package of spaghetti.
Cuisine: European
Author: Christine Melanson
Serving: 1g, Calories: 256kcal, Carbohydrates: 18g, Protein: 4g, Fat: 20g, Saturated Fat: 2g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 16g, Sodium: 115mg, Fiber: 3g, Sugar: 9g