Good old St. Paddy’s Day is tomorrow, and while I didn’t make any Irish soda bread last weekend or have a blast celebrating at any parades, I wanted to share a green recipe in honor of the holiday.
My heritage is part Irish, and I have lots of St. Paddy’s Day memories: my family getting together at my grandma’s house (who was Italian, but loved any excuse to celebrate!) for corned beef & cabbage (hold the corned beef for me), potatoes and Irish soda bread; and day drinking at many Irish parades in Jersey as a college kid.
I kind of would like to be wearing green shamrock stickers on my face and day drinking with my girlfriends right about now actually, but any who… here’s a fun little holiday tidbit: The color green being associated with Ireland dates back to at least the 1600s.
And speaking of green… helloooo pesto – a veggie-packed, vegan pesto pasta dish to be precise.
I used to not be a huge fan of pesto, but a few years ago I all of a sudden started loving it. Since my tastebuds turned on to pesto, I’ve started playing around with different variations of it. This pesto recipe centers around a few of my favorite greens: avocado, basil and spinach.
I love including avocado in pesto because it adds an extra creaminess to the sauce. This pesto also includes walnuts for yummy nuttiness and nutritional yeast for some added vegan cheesiness.
This recipe can easily be adapted for your taste preference: You can use gluten-free pasta if that’s what works best for you; you can include grated parmesan cheese in the pesto if you don’t mind dairy and don’t have nutritional yeast on hand; you can even add in a piece of some sort of animal protein if desired. I’d bet that chicken or salmon would pair well with this pesto pasta for you meat eaters.
The night that we ate this pesto pasta for dinner in my household also happened to be the night that marked a week of me being dessert free after eating all the pastries in Solvang… so I broke my dessert fast by whipping up some peanut butter brownies:
I have no recipe to share for it because it was one of those little-bit-of-this-spoonful-of-that kind of creations, but I can assure you that they were yummy!
Spinach Walnut Avocado Pesto Pasta [Vegan]
Ingredients
- 1-1 lb box of farfalle or other short shaped pasta
- 1 medium avocado pitted and quartered
- 2 cups packed spinach
- 1/2 cup packed fresh basil
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup raw walnut pieces
- Juice from 1/2 medium lemon
- 2 TBSP nutritional yeast
- 1 clove garlic halved
- 1/4 TSP salt
- 1/8 TSP pepper
- Optional: extra nutritional yeast or grated parmesan cheese for topping if not vegan
Instructions
- Cook pasta according to directions.
- Meanwhile, combine all other ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth. You may need to scrape the pesto down from the sides of the food processor once, then pulse again.
- Once the pasta is drained, return it to the pot. Add the pesto into the pasta, and mix together well. Add in additional salt and pepper to taste. Serve while hot.
- Optional: Serve with more nutritional yeast or grated cheese to add on top of dish.
Tell me… Do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? Are you a pesto fan?
Britt@MyOwnBalance says
I love love love the idea of putting avocado in your pesto! It is such a superfood and what a great idea! I’m not Irish but Happy St. Patty’s Day!
foodielovesfitness says
Thanks, Britt! Yea, you should definitely try avocado in pesto 🙂
Sarah @ Making Thyme for Health says
I’m a little mad that you’re teasing us with those brownies but I suppose this healthy green pasta will suffice. It looks delicious! 🙂
And I love that saying about the Irish and their whiskey. Hilarious!
foodielovesfitness says
Ha! I started off following a recipe from How Sweet Eats and then kind of went off track and did my own thing. PB brownies are dangerously delicious!
Nellie @ Brooklyn Active Mama says
I JUST started liking pesto as well but i have never made it from scratch. Thanks so much for the recipe!
foodielovesfitness says
Oooh, you should try it Nellie! It’s not hard at all.
Kim says
This looks awesome! I’m a huge pesto fan and could eat pasta daily so…
foodielovesfitness says
Thanks, Kim! Oh yea, I could eat pasta every day too…
Hillary | Nutrition Nut on the Run says
Yum, I love avocado pasta. I need to get some nutritional yeast.
foodielovesfitness says
Yea, it’s a good vegan sub for cheese in things… but grated parm will work for this too!
Cailee @ http://hellohealthyeating.com says
Happy Saint Pattys Day!! This looks delicious! Perf recipe to celebrate with! LOVE it! ..also those brownies look AMAZING!! 🙂 Yuuuummmmm!! Yay for chocolate!
foodielovesfitness says
Thanks girl, hope you celebrated the holiday too in some way!
Kelsey @ Snacking Squirrel says
OH MY! all of this looks so good! Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you!
foodielovesfitness says
Thanks for reading, Kelsey! By the way, that’s my sister’s name too! I feel like I don’t hear it very often.
Abby @ BackAtSquareZero says
Oh, I just bough a food processor. Never thought of being able to make my own pesto. How awesome.
foodielovesfitness says
Ooooh, I love my food processor! It’s one of those things that you don’t realize all you can do with it til you have it and use it all the time.
Anna says
This looks so good and I love that bright green color! Definitely pinning this and making it this week!
foodielovesfitness says
Awesome, thanks Anna! Let me know how you like it 🙂