Nut free pesto recipe

My oldest son is allergic to nuts, so I'm always on the lookout for how to turn a typically nut heavy recipe into something that doesn't have nuts.

Pesto is notorious for containing pine nuts, and most processed or pre-packaged pesto's contain nuts,

but I knew there had to be a way around using nuts when I made pesto.

This summer, we grew basil in our garden so I had basil in abundance.

I decided to try making pesto without nuts with the basil we had growing in our garden.

You will need:

fresh basil
extra virgin olive oil

Parmesan cheese

fresh lemon

garlic

I started by putting the basil in my small food prep blender.

Chop

I added about 1/3 cup of Parmesan cheese to the chopped basil in my blender and mixed well.

Add about four cloves of garlic, pressed and squeeze your lemon {about 2 tsp. of lemon juice}

Combine

You can also add a dash of salt and pepper if you would like.

Gradually stir in your olive oil adding about a quarter cup to start with and working your way up to about a half a cup depending on how runny you like your pesto.

Once your pesto is the desired consistency I heat it up and add it to pasta.

It's a crowd favorite at our house.

Pesto can even be frozen! This nut free pesto made from scratch takes about five minutes. That's one quick dinner idea for an evening meal when you don't have much time. What are your favorite fast easy dinner meal plans?