Serves 4
You may or may not know that I’m working on a low fat cookbook. I was deeply concerned that this meant goodbye to some of my favorite dishes but with a few tricks, a lot of creativity and many hours searching thriftstores for 80s diet cookbooks, I’ve been able to keep myself satisfied and I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing much.
For instance, no one should suffer a life without pesto, but a pesto without pinenuts or walnuts seems lifeless. So what’s a girl to do? Once again, it’s soybeans to the rescue! Edamame has just enough fat and texture to make a lighter healthier pesto work. It also makes the pesto at once bulky and creamy. It’s a miracle, really. Oh, little soybean, what can’t you do?
In this dish I’ve sauteed some mushrooms for meatiness and red onions for a little tinge of sweetness. But you can use edamame pesto as a dip or as a topping for a baked potatoes, or as a filling for lasagna, or anywhere else that pesto would be appropriate. It’s really easy and versatile, too. It may not taste exactly like the super oily pesto we all know and love, but it tastes pretty darn good and it’s got a fraction of the fat so it won’t leave you feeling like you’re about to give birth to a pesto baby. Did I just ruin your appetite forever?
For the edamame pesto:
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup packed basil leaves
Handful (1/4 cup or so) fresh cilantro
14 oz package shelled edamame, thawed
1/2 cup vegetable broth
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
optional: 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
For the pasta:
10 oz spinach linguine or other pasta
1 teaspoon olive oil
Small red onion, in thinly sliced half moons
1/2 lb cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt
Extra basil for garnish
Cooking spray
Put on a pot of salted water to boil. Then prepare the pesto:
Place garlic and basil in food processor and pulse a few times to get it chopped up. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until relatively smooth, scraping down the sides with a spatula to make sure you get everything. Add a little more vegetable broth if it seems too stiff. Set aside until ready to use.
Preheat a large pan over medium heat. At this point your pasta water should be ready, so add the linguine.
Saute onion in oil for about 5 minutes. Use a little cooking spray as needed, or a splash of water if you prefer. Mix in mushrooms, garlic, thyme and salt. Cover pot and cook 5 more minutes, stirring occasionally.
The pasta should be ready now, so drain it.
When the mushrooms have cooked down, add pasta to the pan, along with the pesto. Use a pasta spoon to stir and coat the linguine. Get everything good and mixed and the pesto heated through, about 3 minutes. The pesto should be relatively thick, but if it’s too thick (not spreading out and coating the pasta) add a few tablespoons of water. Taste for salt.
Serve immediately, garnished with a little fresh chopped basil.
Was I suppouse to use the edmame bean alone? without the outer layer… I don’t know what it’s called … the edmame with its outer layer ? It ended up splintoring in the pesto sauce and poking my mouth and throat… I think I made it wrong 🙁
Yes, it should be just the bean inside. The outer shell is not edible. Sorry!
Made this tonight and used frozen broad beans instead of edamame because they’re tricky to find here (no Trader Joes). It was delicious! Thanks for the recipe
Made this tonight and it was super delicious!! YUM!
I made the whole recipe a few weeks ago and had some of just the pesto leftover so I froze it. I just reheated it for a side dish with my lunch – yummy!
This is my absolute favorite! Love it. To make it even lower calorie I make pasta out of zucchini using a julienne peeler. So easy and quick to cook the zucchini in the microwave and then put the pesto on top with some nutritional yeast.
I have made this recipe twice. Its SO DELICIOUS! Edamame as pesto is brilliant! The second time I omitted the whole mushroom part of the recipe and I don’t think the pesto missed it. I didn’t have any mushrooms, anyways! You ROCK! Also, I used while wheat linguine.
This sounds amazing! I am allergic to cilantro – do you have suggestions for a replacement? Thanks!
Sorry this may be a stupid question. I’d like to use fresh soybeans, do I have to boil them first, or do they just go raw into the processor? (Can’t tell whether the frozen pack would be cooked or no.)
Was my christmas meal for 2011. Tasty and very filling.
This was terrific! I’m amazed at how little oil is used. The only thing I’d say is taste before adding salt–the veggie broth I used had plenty and so the end product was a little saltier than I would have liked. But I’ll watch for that next time!
This was so good! I made it last night and ate waaaaay too much (when you wake up still with a food baby in tact, you know it was a good night :P) !
Great recipe!
Just made this tonight and it was ridiculously delicious. I didn’t use all of the pesto and froze some in ice cube trays for later. Thank you so much!
Just made it Yum YUm Yum, first time I ahev every used edamame, always a bit nervous trying new items. I have been a vegetarian for 24 years and a vegan for 3 weeks! chose vegan fro health reasons I am so fed up vegan /vegetarianism trying to imitate meat dishes I hate the taste of meat.now I have found your site I am in haven.
QUESTION how long do you think I can keep the pesto in the fridge for or should I freeze it in portions?
Also cant wait for you low fat cook book as i got a tone of weight to lose. need some fresh ideas, as getting a bit tiered of Rose Elliot yum foods
thanks
Made this last night! It was AMAZING (even though my blender was fussy and left some pretty hefty chunks of edamame.) It’s incredible how the edamame seemed to replicate cheese in a weird way. I do have a question. I’d love to make this for my boyfriend but he’s allergic to cilantro (I know, it’s horrible). Would you just replace the cilantro with more basil or what?
I plan on making this today, but do I need to just let the frozen edamame thaw, or follow the microwave/stove top cooking directions on the package?
You can microwave.
I will make this recipe…..I just hope it turns out since I’m new at this…..trying my best to go vegan!!!!!
Oh my gosh this was so fantastically delicious. This is the best vegan pesto I’ve had, and it’s even healthy! Thank you Isa!
Yum! Didn’t have the cilantro, but I used luscious basil I grew in my garden and because we didn’t have mushrooms, I chopped some oil free sundried tomatoes that I’d soaked and added at the end with the sautéed onion and garlic. Wonderful!
If you have a high-speed blender, I would recommend using it. Since this has little oil, it was harder to get smooth in my food processor. I found it too salty for my taste and would cut back to 1/4 – 1/2 tsp of salt and taste from there, since there’s already salt in the vegetable broth. Beside that, I think this is a good recipe. It’s so damn healthy too. Not your conventional pesto but still very satisfying.
Made this oil free and all my guests raved over it. I did end up using over a cup of broth in the pesto to get it to the right consistency. I also doubled the lemon juice to compensate for all the broth and added a handful of walnuts. But so so good.