Arugula black walnut pesto
I know that every recipe on here so far is a black walnut recipe, but I have a ton of it in my fridge right now, so. The black walnut recipes will continue.
I have come to hold the opinion that you can turn basically any aromatic green and any nut into pesto and it’s good every time. This was my first time attempting it with black walnut and it was also very good this time. I tend to go hard on the nuts when making pesto, but because black walnut has such a strong flavor, I restrained myself this time so it wouldn’t overwhelm the sauce.
This was also my first attempt at vegan pesto. I do love cheese and I do have a block of parm I could have used, but it’s easy to make pesto vegan and I want to prioritize making vegan recipes to post here. It turns out nooch and black walnut go really well together!
Also, a weird thing happened: when I blended all the ingredients they emulsified, which I have never seen pesto do. I’m guessing it happened because I was using black walnut butter instead of whole nuts. It turned out super thick so I ended up having to add some pasta water to thin it back down.
Anyway here’s the recipe:
Ingredients
4 cups loosely packed arugula, blanched (reduces to about 1/2 cup)*
1 lemon, juiced
2 garlic cloves
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp kosher salt
black pepper to taste
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup or so pasta water
Directions
Just blend until smooth, adding enough water to reach the desired consistency. The ole immersion blender is of course great for this. Put it on pasta or whatever you please.
*Note: you don’t strictly have to blanch the leaves, but doing so will keep the resulting pesto bright green instead of oxidizing to a sad brown. I recommend blanching any leaf to be used for pesto.