A garlic free, low FODMAP pesto made with chives and basil for the perfect IBS friendly sauce. Vegan & Paleo
If you would have told me a year ago that I’d ever think of making a garlic free pesto I would have declared blasphemy and told you that you’re out of your mind. I looove garlic. I come from a garlic loving family. Pesto and garlic go hand in hand – you can’t have one without the other. It’s like taking the tomatoes out of a marinara sauce – oh wait, I did that too! Apparently all bets are off with me and my food preparation.
And yet, as is often the case, here I am eating my own words to share with you this garlic free, low FODMAP pesto. As much as I love my garlic, I can honestly say that I don’t miss a single thing in this sauce. In place of where I would normally use garlic, I swapped it out for chives to get that sharp, onion-y taste. Not only is this garlic free, but I also subbed the traditional parmesan with nutritional yeast to get that cheesy taste. If dairy isn’t an issue for you then feel free to use the real stuff.
As much as I love garlic, I’ve grown to view it in a different light this past year. When you’re forced to cook without something that is relied upon so heavily, you find ways to do without. Sometimes experimentation works, and sometimes it doesn’t. As frustrating as I found it to cook without it, I know cooking this way has made me a better cook in the long run. There’s actually a really interesting article about an Italian born chef who moved to Toronto to start his own restaurant. During the first 12 months of his restaurant, his staff were forbidden to use any garlic of any kind. The second year, they were allowed to use garlic infused oil. Finally after 2 years, his chef’s were allowed to cook with garlic after they had “learned how to use garlic in the right way”.
Full disclosure, we’ve actually started introducing garlic and a few other high FODMAP foods back into Mike’s diet these past couple of weeks. Since he started following the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (basically no starches and grains) he’s been tolerating foods that were previously off limits sooo much better. Avocados, full fat coconut milk, dates and blackberries are back on the table. Even eggs were an issue for a while, but he’s having those again now much to my excitement. However, we don’t want to push the boat too far out from shore so we’re really just dipping our feet in the water at the moment. Even though he has been able to eat small bits of garlic without issue, I’m still preparing him mostly FODMAP free foods. It’s been a lot of trial and error, but I feel like we’re making progress with his diet.
Finally.
You can also easily substitute the extra virgin olive oil in this recipe for a garlic infused olive oil – just make sure that it is one that doesn’t have bits of garlic floating around to keep it low FODMAP.
Low FODMAP Pesto
A garlic free, low FODMAP pesto made with chives and basil for the perfect IBS friendly sauce. Vegan & Paleo
Ingredients
- 1 cup | 48 grams chopped chives
- 1/2 cup | 24 grams fresh basil
- 1/2 cup | 120 ml extra virgin olive oil*
- 1/2 cup | 35 grams pine nuts
- 1/4 cup | 25 grams nutritional yeast or grated parmesan
- a squeeze of lemon juice
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Add all of your ingredients to a blender or food processor and process until you get your desired, pesto consistency. Season with salt and serve.
Notes
*you can also use garlic infused extra virgin olive oil
Alyssa says
This was so wonderful!!!! I love having/making fresh pesto during the summer, but just couldn’t quite figure out how to do so without the usual staples of garlic and parmesan… Thanks to you, I’ve been very happily enjoying pesto all week! The only changes I made were to use garlic infused olive oil and I toasted the pine nuts (my favorite way to have them). I have been putting this on everything from grilled swordfish to simple ground turkey! Just delightful! Thank you so much!
Sarah Nevins says
Thanks Alyssa! That makes me so happy to hear how much you’ve been enjoying this! Thanks so much for taking the time to come back and let me know what you thought!
Marie says
Not on the FODMAP diet but do have IBS and in particular, “garlic issues”. And I also love pesto and other garlic containing foods, so love when I find alternatives. Looking forward to trying this.
Sarah says
I hope you like it! My mother-in-law is the same – no FODMAP issues (though she does have diverticular) but garlic is not her friend. A total bummer, but on the bright side it forces you to try to be a more creative cook at least 😀
Rebecca says
I have a ton of basil on my hands and more to harvest. This turned out wonderful, and so happy to have a safe fodmap version. I doubled the whole thing and put 1/4 cup garlic infused oil and 3/4 cup canola oil (that’s what I had). Too bad those pine nuts are so darned expensive, oh well.
Sarah says
I’m so glad you liked it! Thanks for coming back to let me know how it went! If there are any low fodmap nuts that you can tolerate you could try using those in place of pine nuts or at least half the amount of pine nuts so it goes farther. I’ve been playing around more with using different nuts in pesto and it does the trick for me!
Megan M says
Finally, a low FODMAP pesto recipe that is actually low FODMAP! I can’t wait to try this out!
Sarah says
I hope you like it!
Emily says
I just tried this recipe, and I honestly can’t believe how garlic-y it tastes! Thanks for sharing this! I’m definitely adding this recipe to my favourites.
Sarah says
Yay! Glad you liked it! Thanks for coming back to leave a comment! 🙂
adele says
Thank you so much for all of the wonderful low fodmap recipes! My daughter has been missing pesto…Looking forward to making it tonight!
Sarah says
I hope you guys liked it!
Carmen M. says
This recipe inspired me to make pesto for the 1st time, yay! My daughter has just been put on the Fodmap diet so I was thrilled to find your recipe. I substituted a few things for ingredients I didn’t have (chopped pecans for pine nuts, balsamic vinegar instead of lemon juice, and added a handful of fresh spinach). It turned out GREAT and my daughter loved it. Thanks so much!!
Sarah says
Yay! That makes me so happy to hear! Your substitutions sound delicious – you’ve got me dying to use balsamic vinegar the next time I make pesto. Thanks for coming back to leave a comment!
Marcia says
I am now on the FODMAP diet and have really been missing pesto. I found your recipe was excited about making it. I put cooked boneless skinless chicken breast in the sause, heated it and served over pasta. I used the broth from the steamed chicken to thin out the sause a little. I mixed a little garlic infused oil in with the olive oil. A little of that goes a long way. DELICIOUS!!! My husband and I thought it was better that the pesto sause I always bought before the garlic free diet. Thank you for your creative FODMAP recipes.
Sarah says
Thanks Marcia! That makes me so happy to hear that you both enjoyed it! 🙂
Molly Woloszyn says
Hi! Quick question, does this amount of pesto do well with 1 lb of pasta? More/less? Thanks!
Sarah says
Hi Molly! I just realized that my yield amount listed for this just said ‘1’ – it should have said one cup. According to this article from Delallo you usually want about 1 cup of an oil based sauce per 1 pound of pasta. Hope that helps! http://www.delallo.com/articles/sauce-and-serve-pasta
Suzan says
This was so wonderful! Thank you!
I made it and used it for a salmon dish, which was amazing.
Sarah says
Yay, I’m so glad you liked it! Thanks for leaving a comment – comments like this make my day 🙂