Is Pesto Vegan? Vegan Pesto Sauce Guide

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Is pesto sauce vegan?

Traditional pesto is made with garlic, basil, pine nuts, and Parmesan. So the typical pesto you know is not vegan.

However, many companies also produce vegan pesto by replacing Parmesan with yeast. Nutritional yeast is an inactive yeast that vegans often use to give their dishes a cheesy flavor without dairy.

Is all pesto made the same way?

The word “pesto” nowadays refers to a whole range of different sauces.

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These sauces often don’t include basil. Although a green herb is usually substituted, they often use a nut other than pine – or don’t have nuts at all – and may well not contain cheese. In other words, if you see pesto on a menu or are served it at someone’s house, it is worth checking whether or not it actually contains cheese.

How to make vegan pesto?

While a standard recipe for pesto might include cheese, it’s not at all necessary. Here are a couple of suggestions for cheese substitutes that more or less perform the same function as their dairy counterpart:

Additional salt and oil

The simplest way to make a vegan pesto – alla Genovese – is simply to omit the cheese entirely. If you do this for yourself or for a vegan guest, you will probably need to add a little more salt than usual, since part of the cheese’s role is to act as a seasoning, and perhaps a little more oil.

Alternatively, adding a little nutritional yeast is an excellent way to reproduce some of the cheese’s flavor.