No more boring, bland, obligatory potatoes at your next holiday meal! These Pesto Herb Scalloped Potatoes are creamy, cheesy, and flavorful, with a unique pesto kick most people don't expect in scalloped potatoes. They are delicious right alongside ham, lamb, fish, chicken, tofu, or whatever else you want to serve them with!
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Scalloped potatoes are usually reserved for holiday meals, like Easter, Christmas, or Thanksgiving, mostly because they just take longer to prepare. While these healthy scalloped potatoes still take a while, we shortcut the time a little by pre-cooking the potatoes in the microwave for a bit so they're already soft before adding the BOMB pesto herb sauce and garlic crumble on top.
Precooking also helps prevent the potatoes from absorbing too much of the sauce while they bake. Try our other pesto recipes too, like Arugula Pistachio Pesto, and Sage Pepita Pesto!
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How are Pesto Scalloped Potatoes Heart Healthy?
We start with the potato. Potatoes are a good source of fiber, potassium, and vitamin C. And despite what trendy fad diets promote, potatoes are a healthy and budget friendly addition to your heart healthy diet (as long as you're not adding cheese, sour cream, bacon, butter, and the like)!
If you've been here for long, you know pesto is one of my favorite sauces! And my kids love it, too! And while it's not terribly unhealthy, it can often be high in sodium and saturated fat - two nutrients that aren't great for heart health in high amounts.
So, I use a few unconventional ingredients in my pesto. First, I use miso paste instead of cheese. For this recipe I used White Miso Paste, but you can use any you like. Miso paste does have sodium in it, so we use just a bit of it for some briny, umami, cheesy goodness. We keep other great ingredients in pesto, like basil, garlic, lemon juice, and pine nuts.
To make this saucy and creamy, I used an unsweetened cashew yogurt and omitted all the oil. That substitution helps make the entire dish lighter, while perfectly marrying the potatoes and pesto. I DO!
So overall, these dairy-free scalloped potatoes are high fiber, vitamin C and vitamin K, and heart protective monounsaturated fats. They are also a good source of iron and potassium!
Ingredients
Here's what you'll need to make Pesto Herb Scalloped Potatoes:
- Gold potatoes
- Unsweetened cashew yogurt
- Fresh basil
- Miso paste
- Pine nuts
- Garlic
- Lemon juice
- Olive oil
- All purpose flour
- Vegetable stock
- Breadcrumbs
- Garlic powder
- Dried parsley
- Salt
See recipe card for quantities.
Instructions
This recipe does include a few more steps than many of the recipes here, but they're relatively simple. Here's how to make these non dairy scalloped potatoes!
Peel the potatoes.
Use a mandolin slicer to slice the potatoes very thin.
Put the potato slices in a large bowl and cover with water. Microwave for about 15 minutes, checking them every 5 minutes.
Drain and rinse the potatoes.
Empty the potatoes into a baking dish that has been sprayed with nonstick spray and set aside for now.
Make the pesto sauce by combining the ingredients in a food processor.
Process on high until the mixture is smooth.
Heat the oil in a small pot.
Add the flour.
Whisk the oil and flour together.
Continue cooking and whisking constantly for about a minute.
Pour in the pesto sauce, and whisk to combine. Bring to a simmer for a few minutes.
Pour the pesto sauce over the potatoes.
Combine all the ingredients for the garlic herb topping, and mix with a fork until the mixture resembles coarse sand.
Sprinkle the topping over the potatoes.
Bake until bubbly and crispy, and potatoes are very soft.
Hint: pesto sauce can be as smooth or as chunky as you like, but in this recipe, a smooth sauce works best.
Substitutions
Can't find cashew yogurt? Or looking for nut free or gluten free scalloped potato options? Try these:
- Yogurt - instead of cashew yogurt, try soy yogurt, almond milk yogurt, or nonfat dairy yogurt - just make sure it's unsweetened no matter what you pick
- Nut free - use sunflower seeds instead of pine nuts, or simply omit the pine nuts
- Gluten free - make this gluten free by using 1.5 teaspoon cornstarch instead of flour. During the roux-making step, omit the oil and heat the vegetable stock over medium heat to a simmer Then add the cornstarch, and simmer until thickened. Proceed with the recipe as written from there. Also, be sure to use gluten free breadcrumbs.
Equipment
While you can definitely make this recipe without special equipment, I do recommend one thing that you might not have. A mandolin slicer is so helpful in getting the potatoes sliced thinly. If you're a superstar with your knife skills, have at it! Or even if you're not, thicker slices are ok, but they will take longer to cook. I have this handy dandy All in One Chopper, Slicer, and Grater*, and I use it all the time, including for this recipe!
Otherwise, I recommend a vegetable peeler*, a food processor*, and maybe a kitchen scale* to weigh the potatoes.
I'm using an eleven inch casserole dish from Martha Stewart* for this recipe. Any similarly sized casserole dish will work though.
*Affiliate links
Storage
Cool Pesto Herb Scalloped Potatoes completely, and store leftovers covered, in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. You can reheat in the microwave.
This is not recommended for the freezer.
Top tip
A mandolin slicer will ensure uniform and paper thin slices of potato! Otherwise, you may need to cook your dish much longer.
FAQ
I like Yukon Gold potatoes for scalloped potatoes. They are starchy enough to help thicken the sauce a bit, but waxy enough to hold their shape. Perfect combo!
Russets tend to break down a bit more, but make the sauce even thicker. Something like a purple/blue potato may also work, since they tend to be starchier. Red potatoes are not ideal since they are quite waxy and don't soften up quite as much.
Technically, no. We do this to cut down on the baking time, as well as help the dish be less starchy. However, if you don't want to do this step, you can simply bake the complete dish for about 1 ½ hours to 1 hour 45 minutes. You'll probably want to cover it for the first half of that time so the breadcrumb topping doesn't burn.
Related
Looking for other healthy potato recipes? Try these:
Pairing
These are my favorite dishes to serve with healthy scalloped potatoes:
📖 Recipe
Pesto Herb Scalloped Potatoes
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ lbs Yukon Gold Potatoes
Pesto Yogurt Sauce
- 1 ½ cups Forager Project Unsweetened Plain Cashewmilk Yogurt
- 4 oz Fresh Basil by weight
- ¼ cup Toasted Pine Nuts
- Juice of ½ lemon
- 2 tablespoon Miso Paste
- 2 Garlic Cloves
- 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
- 1 tablespoon Flour
- ½ cup Homemade Vegetable Stock or no/low sodium vegetable broth
For the Herb Topping
- ½ cup Breadcrumbs
- 2 tablespoon Olive Oil
- 2 teaspoon Garlic Powder
- 2 teaspoon Dried Parsley
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a small baking dish (about 7 in x 10 in or similar size) with cooking spray.
- Peel the potatoes, and slice them very thin, using a mandolin slicer. Thicker slices will take longer to cook.
- Put the potato slices in a large bowl, and cover with water.
- Microwave the potatoes for about 15 minutes total, stopping to stir them and check their softness.
- When the potatoes are soft and "floppy" remove them from the microwave (carefully, with pot holders!), and drain and rinse them.
- Dump the potatoes into the baking dish, and arrange them as level as possible. Set aside.
- Make the pesto yogurt sauce: combine the cashew milk yogurt, basil, pine nuts, lemon juice, miso and garlic cloves, in a food processor or blender, and process on high until smooth. Set aside for a minute.
- Make a roux - heat the oil in a large skillet. When warm, add the flour and whisk constantly for about a minute to cook the flour.
- Add the vegetable stock, and whisk to combine. Bring to a simmer for a few minutes to thicken.
- Pour the yogurt pesto into the thickened broth, and whisk to combine.
- Simmer for a few more minutes, whisking periodically. Turn off the heat.
- Pour the sauce over the potatoes, making sure all the pieces are submerged.
- Now make the herb topping by combining breadcrumbs, garlic powder, parsley, and salt in a small bowl. Mix with a fork until the mixture resembles coarse sand.
- Sprinkle the mixture over the potatoes.
- Bake, uncovered, for about 30-45 minutes, until the potatoes are soft when a fork is inserted.
- Best served immediately.
Nutrition
*Nutrition information is an estimate, and will change based on the brand and individual ingredients and amounts you use. This is provided for your convenience only.
Food safety
Safety is our top priority in the kitchen! Always keep these tips in mind.
- When using a mandolin slicer, always use the hand/finger guard to avoid cuts
- Cook to a minimum temperature of 165 °F (74 °C)
- Do not use the same utensils on cooked food, that previously touched raw meat
- Wash hands before touching food, and after touching raw meat, your hair, face, pets, etc.
- Don't leave food sitting out at room temperature for longer than 2 hours (or 1 hour if the weather is hot)
- Never leave cooking food unattended
- Always have good ventilation when using a gas stove
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