Boil pasta according to instructions on packet - add a handful of frozen green peas if you wish
Meanwhile, place all the ingredients for the pesto into a food processor and whizz until smooth - add a little extra water or plant-based milk if you're having trouble blending it
Drain the cooked pasta
Add the pesto sauce to the pan with the drained pasta and mix well
Enjoy immediately!
Notes
*You can also use store-bought vegan pestoI like to add peas to this and cook them at the same time as the pasta, but you can add any other vegetables you like. Broccoli or kale can be cooked with the pasta, spinach can be wilted in at the end. Or you could pan-fry some courgette (zucchini) or mushrooms.
How to make Creamy Vegan Pesto Pasta
If you want to make this Vegan Pesto Pasta creamy, you can do this very easily using plant-based milk (I like unsweetened almond milk, unsweetened cashew milk or unsweetened oat milk for this) and cornflour (cornstarch).For the serving size specified in this recipe, you'll need to use 230 ml (1 cup) plant-based milk and 2 tablespoons cornflour (cornstarch). Be very careful with how you use the cornflour, though! You have to dissolve the cornflour first in a very small amount of cold water and then only add it to the sauce once it's very hot and bubbling. If you add the cornflour straight to the hot sauce without dissolving it in cold water first, it'll form small clumps that refuse to dissolve and if you add the dissolved cornflour when the sauce isn't very hot, the same thing will happen.Troubleshooting tip: However, if you do end up with a sauce full of clumps of cornflour, you can just tip the sauce back into the blender you made your pesto in until you get rid of the lumps and then reheat the sauce in the pan, gently stirring it, and it should thicken up.