It’s taken me a while to feel inspired to cook spring recipes due to the move/renos and the on-again, off-again spring weather (ahem, fresh blanket of snow last week), but now I can say it finally feels like spring. Today also happens to be Earth Day which is even more reason to eat some plants. I love this time of the year and it’s been fun experiencing spring with a backyard again! Oh how I missed having a backyard. The tulips and daffodils are coming up, the frisky red squirrel is trying its best to take down our bird feeder, and Sketchie is sniffing the spring air through the screen door while the birds, bunnies, and squirrels drive him insane. It’s a good time of year.
Now that we’re starting to get settled into the new house, I’m finding my way back to the kitchen and away from the Indian food take-out menu (at least some of the time). The kitchen is slowly starting to feel like home, complete with fresh tea and vanilla extract stains on the laminate countertops (those were not designed for an avid cook, I tell you! ahhh) and the padded chef’s mat underneath my feet. Every time I cook in there, I get a bit more familiar with my new space and I find myself cursing less and less as I search for misplaced kitchen tools. Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know.
This recipe is an ultra-fresh take on pasta primavera – a spring vegetable pasta dish. Rather than relying on heavy pasta for a spring recipe, I decided to lighten things up with a fresh carrot “pasta”, which is simply julienned carrots. Obviously, the carrot pasta tastes nothing like actual pasta, but I promise you won’t miss it one bit! You’ll be feeling light and energized after eating this rather than sleepy and sluggish. I plan on making a seasonal summer version and a fall version to follow so keep your eyes peeled for those recipes later this year.
So what’s in this delightful spring dish? As per my usual style, it’s loaded with fresh vegetables. Leek, garlic, asparagus, and peas are sautéed with some pink salt, pepper, and olive oil. Ignore the snap peas in the photo above, I opted not to include them in this dish (but feel free to improvise if you’d like). Then I whipped up an incredible batch of pesto – my nut-free Sun-dried Tomato Basil Hemp Pesto adapted from the pesto in my cookbook. Kale can be used instead of basil if you prefer. It’s packed with protein thanks to the hemp seeds and it’s completely nut- and dairy-free without giving up that creamy, luxurious texture that makes pesto so great.
Once the vegetables are tender, I stir in the pesto. This is when things go from good to mind-blowing; a simple spring veggie sauté is transformed into something decadent. It’s one of those I-can’t-stop-eating-this-straight-from-the-skillet dishes. Hold me back! If you can share, it’s the perfect amount for two veggie-loving people – decadent but light, simple to make, and packed with veggies. I swear I felt the baby bust out a flutter kick dance recital after I ate it.
Glowing Green "Pasta" Primavera
Yield
2 servings
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
This is my take on a lightened-up version of pasta primavera - a spring vegetable pasta dish. Rather than using pasta, I opted for fresh carrot pasta which is simply carrots that are julienned into very thin strand-like noodles. This is the julienne peeler that I use. The vegetables are coated with a decadent, but nut- and diary-free sun-dried tomato hemp pesto and it transforms this dish into something decadent and special.
Ingredients
FOR THE PRIMAVERA:
- 2-3 large carrots, peeled and julienned
- 1/2 tablespoon coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil
- 1 leek, thinly sliced into rounds and rinsed off
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 bunch asparagus, ends broken off and chopped into 1-inch pieces
- 1 cup fresh or frozen peas.
SUN-DRIED TOMATO BASIL-HEMP PESTO:
- 1 small clove garlic
- 3/4 cup fresh basil leaves
- 1⁄4 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
- 1⁄4 cup hulled hemp seeds
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon water
- Scant 1/4 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt or pink Himalayan sea salt, or to taste
Directions
- With a julienne peeler, peel the carrots into thin, spaghetti-like strands. Cover with a damp tea towel or damp paper towel to avoid it drying out.
- Add oil to a large skillet or wok, and preheat over medium. Add sliced leek and garlic and saute for 3-4 minutes, until soft and translucent. Add a couple pinches of salt and several grounds of pepper.
- Add the asparagus to the skillet and saute for around 8 minutes more, until tender. Increase heat if necessary. Finally, stir in the peas and cook until heated throughout.
- Meanwhile, make the pesto. Add the garlic into a food processor and process until minced. Now add in the basil and sun-dried tomatoes and process again until smooth. Finally, add the rest of the ingredients and process again until combined and smooth.
- Stir all the pesto into the vegetable skillet mixture and cook until heated throughout. Season to taste.
- Serve the vegetable pesto mixture on top of the carrot pasta.
Tip:
Note: If you'd like to add more protein to this dish, I recommend French green lentils. Edamame would work nicely too.
Nutrition Information
(click to expand)
Lastly, I’d like to pass on some new cookbook reviews and interviews from these lovely bloggers:
Kim @ Our Fresh Kitchen (interview)
Valerie @ Vbouv (multiple recipe reviews)
Melissa @ It’s Got Vegan In It (review)
Ari @ Abe’s Market (interview)
Bianca @ Vegan Crunk (review, recipe)
Lauren @ Lauren Lives Healthy (review)
Alex @ Vegetarian Snob (review, recipe, giveaway)
Jess @ The Wellness Warrior (interview)
Richa @ Vegan Richa (review, recipe)
If I missed any of your reviews please let me know and I’ll be sure to add them to my book page.
Reading about all the veggies in this dish… leek, garlic, asparagus… my mind just suddenly pasted in ‘deliciousness’, right there. this looks sooooooooooooo good! cant wait to try it out!
What a beautiful recipe and perfect for spring, I can’t wait to try it! I’ve made the kale-hemp-sundried tomato pesto and it’s amazing. :)
so pretty and looks yumm!
Hi, Angela! This looks so good I’m going to have switch up the week’s menu and make it tomorrow night!
On a unrelated note: I am making the double chocolate cake from your cookbook and have a question about the sugar. What type of cane sugar did you use? Not the brand, but the grade. Did you use a fine sugar or the larger stuff? The one I have is very coarse, like kosher salt, and I’m afraid it will not fully dissolve and the cake will have crunchies in it. Am I paranoid?
Hey Stephanie, You might be referring to turbinado sugar? That’s very coarse sugar. I used the fine stuff. To be honest I haven’t tried a coarse sugar in a cake so I dont know if it would dissolve or not. Let me know how it goes!
Yes, turbinado sugar. : ) It turned out very well, thank you! I opted to heat the almond milk, sugar and coconut just until the sugar melted and it did the trick very nicely. Unmelted, it would have been very crunchy.
I made this tonight for dinner with the addition of lentils and it was FANTASTIC! Thanks for another great recipe Angela! :)
So, I just posted a brief review, recipe, and giveaway on VeganYumminess.com. :) Giveaway for the Oh She Glows Cookbook ends next Sunday night at midnight (CST). Happy Veg Week!
Thank you so much Lindsay! I will be sure to add your review to the book page.
I love the fact you call it “Glowing Green” because the positive flowing name is the salad topper on top!
Gorgeous green photos :) I am loving asparagus right now too. It’s perfect!
I just returned from my Spring Break in France and Italy where I spent 10 days eating pasta, pizza and bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (not only are they delicious options, but always the cheapest too, and I am on a student budget) so right now I need a carb break haha. However, this recipe has me itching for more pasta! It looks incredible and like an amazing combination of greens and pasta! I can’t wait to try it when I return home and have access to my own ingredients!
Any thoughts on whether onions would be tasty instead of/in addition to the leek?
Yes I think onion would be a fine substitute!
Just an update, tried it last night. The onions worked great! Also didn’t have hemp seeds but used pine nuts and nutritional yeast in the pesto as well as swapping the julienned carrots for spiralized zuchinni and it was excellent!
Great swaps – thanks for your feedback Brett!
Made this for dinner last night and it was SUPERB! So fresh-tasting, light, yet hearty. Amazing! This will definitely become a regular dish in my household!
Yum yum and YUM! You are so incredible and so in bliss with what you do. When I cook now I always think what would Angela do lol* lots of love C
… April 24th and I’ve been making your recipes every day since the 1st, which adds up to about 80% of all my eating this month. I already feel better and the 20% of times I’ve “slipped” were because I was lazy and not prepared!
I just wanted to say that besides the mouth-watering deliciousness of all your recipes, the other thing that I really appreciate about them is the availability of all the ingredients. I live in northern Ontario and haven’t yet run into a case where I couldn’t easily buy them. There’s nothing rare or intimidating about any of it! That means a lot to me.
Hi Debra, Thank you so much for your lovely note. I’m so happy to hear that you are enjoying so many recipes!
This looks so good. I keep scrolling back and forth with the photos. I wish they served something similar in restaurants–crazy busy with a project and haven’t cooked in weeks!
I did a review on your cookbook, Angela!
thevegbaker.weebly.com/1/post/2014/04/the-oh-she-glows-cookbook-review.html
Could you add it to your book page?? I just did the review a few days ago so I’m pretty sure you didn’t already…
And that’s an awesome idea for “pasta”! I’m definitely trying this.
Thank you Courtney! I will be sure to add it :)
Thanks! I love all of the recipes I’ve tried so far from the book :)
I ate aspargus today but my meal didn’t look that green. I like the way you cook and your meals are a grat inspiration.
I love this recipe! I made it yesterday for my boyfriend and me and it was so good that I made it again today! Thank you so much for sharing :)
This recipe looks insanely delicious! Can’t wait to make this!
Divine!! I made this last night for dinner. It was
AWESOME!! I added broccoli to the mix because
my husband loves it. He said it was the best dish
I’ve ever made. Thank you for sharing!!
I just made this recipe and seriously its unbelievable. I used coconut oil for the sautee and its so flavorful and absolutely delicious. Quite possibly the BEST thing Ive ever made …tasted for that matter that is vegan and gluten free! Well Done!!!
Love this recipe! My 17 year old son could not eat it fast enough.
LOVE all of your recipes, Ange, and have been eating totally plant based/vegan the past 2 years! I’ve been thinking about getting a spiralizer and now you are introducing me to the idea of a julienne peeler! Anyone out there using either of these tools and do you think both are useful?
I’m intolerant to hemp. What would be a good sub?
almonds would probably be nice – I would grind them up with the garlic first.
Wow, your food looks amazing, healthy, and beautifully presented.
Again another AMAZING recipe. I used a mix of carrots and zucchini noodles for the “pasta” base and it was great!
I made this!!! I just bought a food processor and this was the first dish I tried. It actually looks like it does in the pictures! And it’s soooo yummy. Thank you for this great recipe! The pesto is divine! So worth the expensive hulled hemp seeds
I made this for dinner tonight and it was delicious! My partner and I both loved it, so fresh and light! I’ve also been absolutely loving your cookbook, everything is so beautiful and every recipe I’ve tried so far has been a success :)
Love this lower carb “green” pasta!!!! It sounds awesome and a perfect spring meal =)
I made this tonight and WOW!! It was delicious! I have never used hemp seeds before, and making my own pesto is always intimidating. However, this was pretty painless and the end result was soooo worth it! great balance and very satisfying! I would highly recommend! :)
Any suggestions if I want to substitute out the peas? I confess…I hate peas.
This is absolutely AWESOME!
Made your primavera. Both I and my boyfriend were very impressed. Substituted half of the asparagus for a cup of broccoli florets, which added a nice flavor. Thanks for sharing!
I just made this and am feasting on it for lunch. Absolutely delicious!!!
Is there a good substitute for the hemp seeds? I love them but I don’t have any at home right now.
Made this for dinner yesterday, and it’s one of my favorite meals I’ve ever cooked! Just delicious. I cheated and used brown rice pasta in addition to the carrots:)
Thank you Angela!
This recipe is amazing! Thanks so much. It will easily be a go to recipe for me to prepare. I loved LOVED it!!
I made it tonight and it’s AWESOME
So much green goodness! I don’t think mine will look nearly as pretty, but will undoubtably be delish! Thank you xo
I don’t have a food processor (it’s on the ‘to buy list’ but i need a bigger kitchen first:)). would it be ok to make the pesto in my Vitamix?
I just made this for dinner and it was ridiculously good! The pesto is out of control delicious! I’m not ashamed to say that I ate almost the entire skillet worth by myself… :)
This will be one of my favorite dishes, I made it just as the recipe suggested on Sunday but look forward switching up the carrots with other options as suggested. My daughter and her little ones (14 months and 4 years old) also enjoyed it. Felt good to serve something so healthy that everyone enjoyed.
This is honestly one of the best meals I’ve had since I transitioned to vegan. Thank you so much for this! I can’t get enough of it!
Hey Angela –
I made this today and while I did discover that I am definitely allergic to leeks I still thought it was great. No worries, I do not intend to use the leeks in the future. I posted my primavera making here:
plantbasedprimary.com/1/post/2014/05/the-zoo-and-pasta-primavera-from-osg.html
Really popular and great flavor :) Thank you for another great one.
Just stumbled on your website while looking for vegan breakfast ideas and I’m super glad I did! Your recipes look amazing and I was just in the process of figuring out how to save the pages of some of my favorite recipes when I found out through the comments that you have a book…!
Definitely gonna be looking for it tomorrow but I wanted to know, what percentage of the recipes currently on your website are in this book?
Thanks :)
Just made this tonight and absolutely loved it. I mixed it with whole wheat orecchiette, kale and spicy italian chicken sausage and it was wonderful! Amazing on it’s own too (I ate a good amount out of the pan while I was cooking).
Thanks for the recipe!
This was AMAZING! The carrot “pasta” added delicious sweetness. Loved it, and such a perfect Spring dish. I cheated a bit and just added parsley, hulled hemp, and sun-dried tomatoes to pre-made Classico basil pesto – not vegan, but it worked well (particularly when it’s been too cold to start growing my own basil)
I made this last night and immediately added it to the list of recipes that I use on the regs. So refreshing, perfect for warmer weather. I added edamame per Angela’s (love of my life) recommendation but will try both edamame and green lentils next time to really lively up the protein levels. Was a bit nervous about how the pesto would turn out because I only had hemp powder, no seeds. Reduced from 1/4 cup to ~1/5 and all was well and delicious! Thank you, Angela! You bring much joy into my life <3
Just made this tonight and OhEmGee it was tasty! This was the first recipe of yours that I have cooked since being introduced to the site by some friends a few days ago. Can’t wait to try more recipes! Thank you!
I made this tonight for dinner. It was absolutely amazing! Just found your blog and I am an extremely happy camper!
Just made this and it is FANTASTIC. My bf ordered pizza and was jealous of my food once I gave him a taste. You are a genius! I’ve made several of your recipes and they’ve all been great! Thank you!