Feature Recipe | Red Pesto Style Sauce

This sauce is bursting with flavour… sweet vine-ripened tomatoes are married with savoury cashew-based parmesan cheese, garden fresh basil and minced garlic to create an authentic pesto-inspired sauce with the perfect balance of sweet meets salty and savoury. Think of it as your almond and tomato alternative to classic pine nut and basil pesto 🙂  With simple ingredients you can whip up this gorgeous red pesto-style sauce in under 30 minutes!

Whether RED or GREEN it’s hard not to love pesto… from its simplicity to its unparalleled flavour pesto is a foodie’s dream. Fall in love again with these Vegan Rhapsody favourites:  

Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto Sensation
Triple Threat Pesto
Tomato & Basil Pesto Pizza

Enjoy~

Ingredients

This & That

• 1 lb dry pasta

Savoury Parmesan Cheese (yields approx. 1 cup)

• 3/4 cup raw cashews
• 2 tsp hemp seeds, raw & shelled
• 1 tsp Himalayan pink salt
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp lemon juice

Sauce

• Glug of olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• Handful fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
• Himalayan pink salt
• 1 lb/425g ripe sweet tomatoes, halved (see Recipe Notes)
• 1.5 cups tomato sauce 
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 75 g almond flour or ground almonds
• 3/4 cup Savoury Parmesan Cheese 

Garnish

• 1/4 cup Savoury Parmesan Cheese

Method

Prep It

1/Cook 1 lb pasta as directed
2//Prepare one batch of Savoury Parmesan Cheese:
-Add dry ingredients to a food processor or high-powered blender. Pulse until well combined.
-Add lemon juice. Pulse until the mixture just starts to combine. Don’t over process – the cheese should be granular, not a paste!

Make It 

1/Add a glug of olive oil to a pot on medium-low heat. Toss the minced garlic, chopped fresh basil and a pinch of salt into the pot. Sauté until the mixture is fragrant. 
2/Raise the temperature to medium-high heat. Add fresh tomatoes, tomato sauce and olive oil to the pot. Cook for 10 minutes.
3/Using an immersion blender or similar, process the sauce until smooth. Reduce heat and simmer sauce for 10 minutes.
4/Fold in ground almonds and 3/4 cup parmesan cheese.  Using an immersion blender or a high-powered blender process the sauce until you reach a smooth consistency.
Tip: To thin out the sauce simple add 1/2 cup vegetable broth and process until well incorporated.

Serve It 

Pour pesto sauce over plated pasta and garnish with reserved 1/4 cup Savoury Parmesan Cheese.

Recipe Notes

(1)For best results use a sweet variety of tomatoes such as grape, cherry or cabernet. Ripe plum tomatoes would also work.

(2)Ground almonds are made from grinding whole, raw almonds in a food processor or high-powered blender until they are processed into a coarse, meal-like texture. Almond flour – typically made from blanched almonds which have had the skins removed – is much finer. This recipe was tested using almond flour.

(3)How to prepare Hemp Parmesan Cheese (approx 3/4 cup):

• ½ cup hemp seeds, raw & shelled
• 1 Tbsp nutritional yeast
• ½ tsp Himalayan pink salt
• ¼ tsp garlic powder

Add dry ingredients to a food processor or high-powered blender. Pulse until well combined.

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