Pesto Courgetti Salad
A lovely zesty and creamy pesto courgette salad paired with salty sweet sun-dried tomatoes. It’s a is a perfect way to use up your glut of courgettes over the summer months.
Pesto pasta is such a popular everyday family meal, and this recipe is a brilliant summer salad twist using spiralised courgette. It’s a clever way to help kids enjoy eating courgette (zucchini) as they love to slurp it down like spaghetti.
This is a dairy-free recipe, as I prefer the lightness of yeast flakes over parmesan cheese for this recipe. It’s therefore suitable for those who have milk allergies or prefer to be plant-based. The boost of yeast flakes is a clever way to add in a source of vegan-friendly vitamin B12. This recipe is suitable from 12 months old.
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Pesto Courgetti Salad
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp Pine nuts
- 25 g Basil leaves
- 1 Garlic clove (small, roughly chopped)
- 1 Lemon (just the juice)
- 2 tbsp Yeast Flakes (also known as nutritional yeast)
- 0.5 tsp Salt (optional)
- 3 tbsp Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
- 2 Courgettes
- 10 Sun-dried tomatoes
Instructions
- Dry fry the pine nuts in a small frying pan for around seven minutes, shaking every minute or so. Take the frying pan off the heat as soon as the pine nuts start to brown and continue to shake every minute or so until they have mainly cooled down and are slightly browned all over.
- Place the pine nuts, basil leaves, garlic, lemon juice, yeast flakes and salt in a mini food processor and whizz up for 30 seconds. Then start adding in the olive oil 1 tablespoon at a time and whizz up for 10 seconds at a time in between. The pesto should be a pale green colour and the consistency of thin yoghurt.
- Spiralise the courgettes and then stir in the pesto sauce to that it evenly covers the courgetti.
- Cut each sun-dried tomato into three with a pair of scissors, and stir the pieced in with the pesto courgetti.
Notes
- You can use ready made fresh green pesto or swap the yeast flakes for parmesan cheese.
- Nut free: swap pine nuts for sunflower seeds
- If you don’t have a spiraliser use a mandolin or grater. You can also use a potato peeler to make courgetti ribbons. This is my recommended spiraliser – be careful with the sharp blades around children.
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