Added on March 14, 2014  Geoff McCabe  Raw Recipes , Vegan Recipes , Vegetarian Recipes

Purslane Basil Pesto

Our Purslane Basil Pesto Recipe

This is a wonderful, super-healthy raw vegan pesto that’s very inexpensive because it’s primary ingredient is purslane, which is perhaps the easiest food to grow on the farm. It’s so easy in fact that we never plant it or take care of it. It grows all over by itself since it’s a weed.

However, this “weed” is also a super-food, with some of the highest levels of Omega-3 oil in all the plant kingdom, and plus it tastes great!

Ingredients

4 Cups Purslane (remove largest stems) – packed down to measure it
2 Cups Fresh Basil – packed down to measure it
1 Cup Sunflower seeds (roasted if you aren’t making a RAW recipe)
1/2 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
8 Garlic Cloves
1/2 Teaspoon Lime Juice (to prevent browning)
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Honey
1/4 Teaspoon Fresh Ground Pepper

Place the sunflower seeds and garlic cloves into the food processor first to make them as fine as possible or the pesto may end up too gritty. Then, add the rest of the ingredients and blend until it’s smooth.

You can add a bit of water to make it creamier, or extra olive oil works too.

Put this on pasta, as shown in the photo, or use it as a dip for bread, crackers, etc. It’s also great on pizza or bruschetta. It works with just about anything actually. You can use it as a sauce for shrimp, or as a topping over fish.

Resources

Purslane – Rancho Delicioso’s Purslane article.
Fergie’s Bites – The recipes that we based ours on.