Vegan beet pesto

This beetroot pesto is a very striking sauce, both to look at and to taste: thanks to the combination of its ingredients, it has a very special flavour in which you can detect sweet, sour and salty notes and a slight bitter touch, all in perfect harmony.

The vivid colour of the beetroot, with its intense, characteristic shade somewhere between red and purple, gives this pesto extra appeal, as besides creating a delicious contrast of flavours with the other ingredients, it adds an original, elegant touch to the dishes it accompanies.

As we explained in the pesto rosso and broccoli pesto recipes, pesto is a sauce whose name comes from the Genoese term 'pestare', meaning "to crush in a mortar", because of the way this sauce was traditionally prepared.

Beetroot pesto is rich in protein, flavonoids, carbohydrates, omega 3, omega 6 and omega 9 fatty acids; beta-carotene, fibre, alliin, vitamins A, C and B-group vitamins (B1, B2, B3, B6 and B9 or folic acid), calcium, copper, chromium, phosphorus, iron, lithium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, potassium, selenium, silicon, sodium, vanadium and zinc.