Plant based savory snacking at its simplest goes like this: grab a veggie (preferably organic), wash it well (and peel if necessary) and start munching. Sometimes though, a little something extra is required to satisfy demanding taste buds. Something with a mouthwatering umami flavor or with a fresh and green lemony tanginess, or better yet – both! I blended seeds and nuts together with veggies and the outcome satisfied my snack cravings perfectly: sunflower seed pesto and arugula-pistachio pesto.
This can definitely be classified as simple snacking as well, because after you’ve gathered all the ingredients for these appetizing snacks, it’s just about blending 🙂
One of my favorite toasts is avocado toast! Smashed avocado is the simplest (and one of the healthiest!) spreads on earth. The texture is incredibly smooth and creamy, and combined with herb salt and a squeeze of lime and/or lemon it makes taste buds sing happy tunes. Avocado toast is also quite the Star on Instagram – there are now nearly 80.000 posts hashtagged #avocadotoast 🙂 (Update January 2019: 1 M #avocadotoast posts !)
Pestos are a staple in our house and we add them to many foods for a juicy twist. This sunflower seed pesto and lemony arugula-pistachio pesto work amazingly well with spiralized vegetables (zoodles, carrot noodles, sweet potato noodles) or gluten-free pasta, and as a dip, too. But when the cravings really hit me, nothing can beat toast.
- [b]Sunflower seed pesto[/b]
- 1/3 cups sunflower seeds
- 1/3 cups sundried tomato (preferably without oil)
- 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/4 tsp paprika
- [br]
- [b]Arugula-pistachio pesto[/b]
- 1,5 cup loosely packed arugula
- 1/3 cup unsalted pistachios
- 3 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- ~1 tsp lemon zest (from 1 medium organic lemon)
- 1/2 tsp garlic flakes or 1/8 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp good quality salt (e.g.Himalayan)
- [br]
- [b]For serious snacking, also:[/b]
- 4 pieces of gluten free toast (or regular toast)
- 1 avocado
- a few tomatoes
- 1/2 tsp Extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 tsp garlic flakes
- Squeeze of lime and/or lemon
- Pinch of herbs & salt
- [b]Preparations:[/b] Soak sunflower seeds and pistachios in separate bowls or jars for ~8 hours prior to making the spread and pesto. Cover seeds and pistachios with water, add a pinch of salt and let soak.
- [b]Sunflower seed pesto: [/b]drain and rinse soaked sunflower seeds.
- Add all spread ingredients to a food processor or blender and blend until desired consistency reached.
- [b]Arugula-pistachio pesto:[/b] drain and rinse soaked pistachios.
- Add all pesto ingredients to a food processor or blender and blend until desired consistency reached.
- [b]Avocado toast: [/b]smash avocado on toast, sprinkle herbs and salt (or herb salt) and squeeze some lime and/or lemon juice on top. Add avocado slices on top.
- [b]Tomato toast:[/b] spread olive oil on top of one toast, add garlic flakes, sliced tomato and pinch of salt.
- Enjoy snacking:)
I followed the sundried tomato heart and it led me here. Here to this beautiful simple savory snack feast! Lazy me rarely gets past the easy avocado option, but your spreads are surprisingly simple, me and my blender could totally do them 🙂 I’m especially drawn to the sunflower seed one, I love the flavor of sundried tomatoes and paprika is my favorite spice. Plus only 4 ingredients, yay! And it would be delish on noodles too, but something about toast is so much more snacky than other carbs. And I like snacky 🙂
Thank you for following the heart 😉 Yes, I totally love sunflower seeds, and they go so well together with sundried tomatoes. When I’m craving savory, it usually includes tomato or avocado in some for or another. Soon going to go drool all over the cookies you posted…So YUMMY! Happy Sunday to you!
Hi Tiina, that Looks really easy. I like to cook Pasta for my hubby this evening because he don’t like soup i cooked yesterday LOL. So I will try out this recipe for my Pasta. Will let you know how it works hon. By the way: I added the Pictures on my page. YEAH! Love them. xx Janine
Thank you Janine! We love these easy spreads and pestos and I make them almost weekly 🙂 Thanks so much for adding the pics <3 Lots of love xoxo
Absoutely loved your Instagram feed but your blog is even better! So beautiful page by page! I also just started mine and enjoy the working process that comes with it! Keep up the good work and if you have any tipps for me they’re more than welcome!
p.s. this pesto recipe sounds mouthwatering!
Thank You so much Jelena! I LOVE your Instagram and your blog too, I’ll take a good look at it soon 🙂 Blogging is a great way to spread passion for healthy food. Loving it a lot! Thanks so much for stopping by. Love from freezing Finland xoxo Tiina
I am so happy I found your blog! I am slowly trying to transition from vegetarian to all our vegan and am looking forward to trying many of your recipes. I am planning to make the spreads to use on toast later but was wondering about how many servings this would make? Thanks!!
Thank you so much Clare for your lovely comment 🙂 About these spreads – they usually last about 2-3 days in our house, and we use both of these spreads with bread and pasta (and incorporate them in other sauces too as a nice tasty ingredient). Unfortunately I did not measure the outcome, but my guess is these recipes make about a heaped 1/2 cup of each. So perhaps would be enough for approximately 8-12 servings (each recipe), depends on how much you spread on top of your toast 🙂 Hope this helps and please ask anything if you have in mind! Have a lovely day!