I attempted to recreate the vegan pesto I had at an Italian restaurant
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Earlier this year, I visited Liverpool's iconic Italian restaurant, Casa Italia, for the first time and had the best meal of my life.
Sign up to our daily newsletterSign upSorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later.Submitting...The vegan Genovese consisted of penne pasta with vegan pesto (without parmesan), oat cream and fresh basil, and I straight away decided it was the nicest meal I have ever had, let alone the nicest pasta.
The bright green colour of the pesto made it clear that it had been made fresh and it wasn't until trying it that I realised I'd never had proper Italian pesto before, even before I was vegan. Tasting absolutely nothing like the shop-bought jars I usually have, it was a beautiful consistency and had a really strong basil taste.
Since visiting Casa Italia several months ago, I had been planning on attempting to make my own pesto at home but, as is life, I kept procrastinating and opting for easier meal options. But, after getting my hands on the award-winning Citizens of Soil extra virgin olive oil, I decided it was finally time to put my chef's hat on.
While I did look at a couple of recipes, I decided to just make the pesto based on taste, adding ingredients as I went along rather than following strict measurements. Taught by dad growing up that recipes are 'pointless', winging it seemed the best option for me - though I will list what I used below.
Vegan pesto at home
I added all of the ingredients - minus the water and EEVO - into a blender and blended until a paste was created. I then added the oil and water and blended again until I had a smooth sauce consistency. At this point, I then tasted it to see if I needed any more salt, pepper, nutritional yeast or basil, but I was happy with it.
I think the hardest part of the whole process was attempting to decant the pesto into a jar, spending quite some time scraping the green sauce off the sides of the blender. At first glance it seemed like I had got barely any pesto either considering the ingredients I used, but you only need to add a teaspoon or two to your pasta to have the perfect amount of sauce.
Adding a couple of teaspoons of my creation - plus some olives and peppers - to al dente spaghetti, I managed to create a tasty meal at home and it tasted much nicer than the jars of pesto I usually grab at the supermarket.
While it definitely wasn't as good as Casa Italia's - and nowhere near as green - I was shocked at just how good my pesto turned out. I had planned to add vegan cheese, expecting it to taste bland without it, but ended up not needing it as the nutritional yeast was enough.
Opting to use olive oil rather than oat cream, I was worried there would be separation and the pesto would be oily, but the extra virgin olive oil was so velvety and lovely that my pesto was the perfect consistency. As someone who is vegan but is also sensitive to oats and soya, Citizens of Soil is the ideal ingredient for me to use instead of plant-based creams and butters, and the sustainable packaging and refills matches my passion about protecting the environment.
I still stand my bold clam that the vegan Genovese at Casa Italia is the nicest meal I have ever had, but I am pretty pleased with my attempt at being a chef and I will definitely be trying to make more meals from scratch - and shop-bought pesto certainly won't be in my fridge.
Citizens of Soil, whose award-winning extra virgin olive oils are on a mission to turn a commodity into a community, have an Olive Oil Club curated by their sommelier that delivers these top picks right through your letterbox each month. The Club is not only about outstanding flavour and nutrition—but also supporting farmers who are going above and beyond with sustainability practices.
As the first brand in the UK to offer refill options for extra virgin olive oil when they launched their low-waste pouches on Waitrose shelves last year, Citizens of Soil is continuing to push for more innovation and transparency across the olive oil category. Along with sourcing directly from small-scale groves, Citizens of Soil champions female producers and those using regenerative agricultural practices that promote soil health, biodiversity, and nutrition.
