pesto Archives • New Nostalgia

Gluten Free Pesto Chicken

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by Meghan Newsom
Health & Gluten Free Recipes

This month’s dish is going to be super easy and super delicious. For those of you with dairy allergies, the pesto is 100% vegan, and this dish is naturally gluten free! It tastes great paired with some cooked greens, sweet potato fries, or roasted vegetables. Any way you pair it, this chicken is a dish that will keep your family coming back for seconds!!

Gluten Free Pesto Chicken
Serves 4

Chicken ingredients:
– 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
– 1 TBS olive oil

Pesto ingredients:
– generous 3/4 cup, chopped sun dried tomatoes
– 2 garlic cloves, crushed – 6 TBS sunflower seeds
– 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 400F/200C.
To make the red pesto, put the sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, 4 TBS sunflower seeds and oil into a food processor and process into a coarse paste.

2. Arrange the chicken in a large, ovenproof dish or roasting pan. Brush each breast with the oil, then place a heaping TBS of red pesto over each breast. (The pesto recipe will make more than you will need for the chicken, so you will have some left over!)

3. Roast the chicken in the oven for 30 minutes, or until the tender and the juices run clear when skewer is inserted into the thickest part of the meat.

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Meghan Newsom

Health & Gluten Free Contributor

Meghan’s site: eat.live. make.

You can follow her here:

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Vegan Pesto

**Guest Post by Jessie @ The Brown Bag

Every once and a while I get a major craving for this pasta. I love making pesto sauces, but this one is by far my favorite because of the Nutritional Yeast. It brings out an amazing nuttiness and compliments the basil so well.

If you’ve never heard of or seen Nutritional Yeast before (you can find it in the bulk food section of your health food store), it’s good stuff…especially if you’re vegetarian, or mostly vegetarian like we are. It’s a great source of protein and amino acids, gluten-free, and is rich in B-complex vitamins and folic acid.

Here’s the recipe:

1 1/2 cups fresh basil
1/3 cup olive oil
1 cup pine nuts (other nuts, such as almonds or walnuts may be substituted)
5 cloves garlic
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Throw it all in your blender and let it rip! Toss it with your favorite whole wheat pasta and eat it up on its own or add some Italian sausage or shredded chicken if you insist on not being a vegetarian despite eating a Vegan pasta!

Other ways to utilize Nutritional Yeast:

sprinkle on salad
add to soups or stews
add it to your popcorn

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Thank you, Jessie, for this healthy and easy recipe! I’ve always been curious about nutritional yeast, your link is very informative.

{Jessie, her handsome husband, and cutie little Sadie}

For more from Jessie, visit her blog- The Brown Bag

She just posted a recipe for Warm Sourdough Chicken Salad that looks divine!

RECIPES/ Sides

Homemade Pesto

Pesto is one of my most favorite foods, so basil is something I knew we had to have in our garden this year. It did quite well, and I made this batch of pesto a few weeks ago. It was gone within the week. My kids loved it! I put most of it in ice cube trays to preserve and freeze for later. Just pop them out and put them in a freezer bag or mason jar, and you have ready to use pesto! My girls know how to boil noodles, so they loved making their own lunch on the weekends. They boiled and drained noodles, then added about 3-4 pesto cubes of pesto per pound of pasta, stirred them into the hot pasta and lunch was served! They loved this plain, but I loved adding some sliced cherry tomatoes, leftover shredded chicken, and shavings of fresh parm to make it a bit more filling and special. I also kept some in a jar in the refrigerator to use as a spread on sandwiches. Delicious!!

This recipe at “Thy Hand Hath Provided”caught my eye because you can use any type of nuts. Pine nuts can tend to be expensive, so I used almonds.

Pesto

1 cup packed fresh basil leaves
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup nuts (whatever you have on hand: pine nuts, pecans, walnuts, almonds, etc. or a combination)
3-6 tbsp. Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. salt
1/4-1/3 cup olive oil

a pinch of nutmeg

Combine all but oil in a food processor. Process, slowly adding oil until desired consistency.

I’ve been a bit busy lately, so my basil is growing like crazy out in the garden, quite neglected. I am hoping to get a few more batches made before the cool weather hits, as basil hates to be cold and will die on me. I’d love to make a huge batch and give some away in jars with these super cute printables from Givers Log. How cute are they??