I love a big spoonful of pesto sauce. It’s the perfect addition to pasta, wraps, sandwiches and much more. Fresh, homemade pesto delivers levels of flavor and texture you just can’t find in a can. But with high portions of fatty ingredients, some pesto sauces can deliver a surprisingly high dose of calories and fat.

And if you’re watching your nutrition or counting macros, a couple spoonfuls of pesto can blow through a lot of your fat and calories for the day.

My love of pesto sauce and finding healthy ways to enjoy good food set me on a mission. Could I create a healthier homemade pesto recipe that packed all the flavor but with less fat and calories? And that was also maybe a little more heart healthy?

It took a little experimenting. Traditional pesto sauce is often made with some heavy-handed portions of olive oil and roasted pine nuts.

For my take on a lighter pesto sauce, I decided to swap the pine nuts for almonds, because almonds are lower in saturated fat, higher in monosaturated fats and lower in overall calories.

And shake things up just a bit, I chose to swap in organic coconut oil in place of olive oil (cutting back a bit in the overall oil level of the recipe).

I incorporate this pesto recipe into my weekly meal prep by throwing it on rice, zucchini noodles, wraps, veggies, a gluten-free bagel, you name it. And I love that I can use twice as much of this lighter pesto sauce as I would a pesto recipe higher in fat because each serving only delivers 5.6 grams of fat vs other pesto sauces that carry 9 or 10 grams per serving.

Best Low-Fat Pesto Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 Cups fresh basil leaves (packed)
• 2-3 Cloves of fresh garlic
• 1/4 Cup baked, unsalted almonds
• 2 Tablespoons coconut oil
• 1/4 Teaspoon pink Himalayan salt
• A pinch of organic black pepper

First thing’s first. They key to a great pesto sauce is fresh basil. And lots of it. I used two packed, very generous cups of fresh basil leaves picked straight from my herb garden.

If you don’t have an herb garden, then check out your local supermarket to find some fresh basil leaves.

The other great thing about pesto sauce is that’s it’s super easy to make. You literally just toss all the ingredients into a food processor (a quality blender will get the trick done too), mix everything up and presto: You have pesto.  (See what I did there? ?)

But anyway, combine almonds, basil, garlic, salt, pepper, and coconut oil in a food processor and blend until thoroughly mixed.

When it’s fully blended, store it in an air-tight container in your fridge. The coconut oil will firm up a bit in the fridge, but it spreads perfectly fine onto bread and wraps. And if you want to drizzle it over some pasta, just give it 5-10 seconds in the microwave to warm it back up and liquify the oil (although adding it onto hot pasta will do the trick of reheating it as well).

This recipe makes 8 tablespoons of pesto sauce. And a little goes a long way!

This stuff also freezes very well, so you can store it away for a couple months, thaw it, bring it back to life with an extra little splash or coconut oil and go to town.

SUBSTITUTIONS:

• You can swap in organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil in place of the coconut oil in this recipe or use a different type of nut than almonds.
• When making substitutions, just keep in mind that your macro count may slightly vary from this specific recipe. If you’re counting macros, just make sure to adjust the recipe macros in a macro calculator based on the ingredients you use.

MACROS (per tablespoon): 

• Calories: 58
• Carbs: 1.2g
• Fat: 5.6g
• Protein: 1.2g

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Other Recipes You May Enjoy

Don’t go away just yet. We’re still getting to know each other! Here are a few more of my recipes that I think you and your taste buds will love.

Protein-Packed Kodiak Blueberry Muffins

Peanut Buttercup Protein Bites

Low-Fat High-Protein Starbucks “Sous Vide” Egg Bites

Quick & Easy Breggfast Sandwich

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All writing and images copyright © 2019 Rachel Elise Weems Woods

Originally published 8-14-15. Updated 6-19-19