When you change your diet to dairy free, it’s easy to think that beautiful creamy sauces will have to become a long and distant memory.
The good news is, it’s actually quite easy to still impart a rich creamy texture into your dairy free meals. My two favourite replacements are soaked cashews and butter beans (the large white tinned ones, not the fresh ones that look like yellow green beans).
Pesto has always been a favourite with my kids.
One of the things I love about it, is how easy it makes it to get a large serving of leafy greens into them. My kids are like everyone elses, and have their moments of being fussy with particular vegetables, and spinach and silverbeet are one of those things that I do struggle to get them to eat as much of as I would like.
Given that pesto is already a brilliant green colour, it makes it super easy to throw in some other green veggies and they are none the wiser!
I usually serve this with gluten free pasta, but you could just as easily use veggie noodles or even serve it on a bed of rice.
Chicken Pesto Pasta
Ingredients
- 300 g gluten-free pasta
- 1/2 cup raw cashews
- 500 ml water
- 1/2 lemon juiced
- 6 cloves garlic
- 2 cups spinach, fresh or 4 cubes frozen
- 1 bunch basil, fresh
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes NOT baking yeast
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 2 cups coconut milk
- 1 tbsp olive oil extra
- 6 chicken thigh fillets cut into bite sized pieces
Instructions
- Cook the pasta as per instructions, drain and set aside while preparing the sauce.
- Soak cashews in water overnight (or in boiling water for 1 hour).
- Drain and rinse.
- Blend in a food processor or blender with 1/2 cup fresh water until smooth.
- Add lemon juice, garlic, spinach, basil, yeast flakes, olive oil and salt.
- Blend until smooth.
- Add coconut milk. Blend until incorporated.
- In a large pot, brown the chicken in the extra olive oil.
- Add the pesto sauce and simmer for 10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
- Serve with pasta
