Vegan Pesto + Smashed Potatoes
The perfect combination for this week!
Hi There! Happy Wednesday 💚
Wednesday is the day for new recipes, and today, we prepared these vibrant and crispy smashed potatoes served with homemade vegan pesto. Imagine the cozy goodness of smashed potatoes paired with the fresh flavors of our homemade vegan pesto. It’s the perfect match!
I have a fun story to share from when I was putting together this recipe for you guys. I took a quick break to take down to compost, and, to my surprise, I spotted a vibrant green plant sprouting right out of the pile. It looked like a potato plant (to be honest, I’ve never grown potatoes), so I pulled, and there it was! A whole potato plant with three or four little baby potatoes budding from it.
For those of you who share my enthusiasm for gardening, you can probably imagine how thrilled I was. 🤭 That beautiful plant is now planted, and I’m hoping I’ll have new potatoes soon.
Maybe it was just a coincidence, but maybe it was my garden telling me, “If you like potatoes this much, here’s one plant for you!” 😂
Ok, now to the recipe… 😊
This Mediterranean-style side dish can also be served as an appetizer or snack. Are you looking forward to trying this recipe?
If you’ve never made pesto before, you’ll see that with just a handful of ingredients, you can make a vegan pesto that tastes just like classic Italian pesto.
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What you’ll need to make this recipe
16 oz baby potatoes
2 ½ cups fresh basil leaves. You can also use a mixed of leafy greens such as spinach and rocket, but we recommend always adding at least half of the amount of basil.
¼ cup pine nuts. You can also use cashews.
⅓ cup yeast flakes. This is to add that cheesy flavor from parmesan used in classic pesto. You can skip this ingredient, but if you have it, we recommend adding it. Also, vegan parmesan is a great option.
1 garlic clove
4 tablespoons olive oil extra virgin
A pinch of salt and pepper
Method
Step 1: Add all the pesto ingredients to a blender and blend until you have a smooth pesto sauce. Adjust the olive oil to taste.
Step 2: Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add the potatoes. Cook the potatoes on medium heat and simmer for around 20 minutes, or until fork-tender. Drain the potatoes and add to a baking tray.
Step 3: Add some olive oil to a baking tray and smash the potatoes into the tray with a glass or flat object. Brush them with some extra olive oil to ensure they get crispy all aroun.
Step 4: Cook the potatoes at 400F/200C for 30 minutes until crispy, turning them halfway through.
Step 5: Transfer the smashed potatoes to a serving plate and serve with the vegan pesto. You can serve the pesto as a dip or add a little spoonful on top of each potato.
Variations to our Smashed Potatoes with Pesto
We've got you covered if you want to serve these crispy potatoes with different dips! Pesto is such a delicious sauce, but sometimes, we serve the potatoes with a different dip because we don’t have fresh basil, or for big gatherings, we like to offer more than one dip. So these are the ones we tried and loved for these smashed potatoes:
If you need something easier, serve them with a store-bought sauce such as ketchup, mayo, or BBQ sauce. You can also get store-bought vegan pesto, if you can find it!
Thanks for supporting our newsletter; I hope you look forward to the upcoming recipes 😊.
Love,
Laura.