Garlic Scape And Onion Flower Pesto Recipe
This is a great recipe if your garlic scapes and onions go to flower at the same time. If not, use the garlic scapes and cut a few onion leaves or bunching onions for this recipe. Add any herbs you like in a pesto and a few greens are great too. I love to add some wild greens or weeds for extra nutrition, such as in my wild greens pesto. But you can add any greens you like for a milder pesto.
Equipment
- A blender or food processor - I like a food processor, it gives me a slightly grainy pesto. Use a blender for a more smooth pesto.
- Silicone spatula
- Knife or scissors
- cutting board
- Frying Pan - For toasting the nuts
- Squat shaped 8 oz jars, Optional - Great for storing and freezing Pesto portions. For larger portions I use wide mouth 16 oz canning jars.
Ingredients
- 1 cup Garlic scapes, chopped - Use tender scapes, picked fresh just after they start to curl. Remove the fibrous tip from the flowers, but you can use the flowers.
- 3 cups Onion flower stalks, chopped - Use the tender stalks and flowers before the flowers start to open.
- 3 cups Herbs and greens, chopped - Use what you have available. I used lemon balm leaves, parsley, cilantro, and lambs quarters.
- ½ cup Walnuts - I used a mix of regular and black walnuts. I like walnuts in this pesto, but you can use any nuts.
- ¾ cup Parmesan cheese - Use any strong flavored hard cheese such as Asiago Pecorino Romano, or Parmesan.
- ½-1 tsp Sea salt - My favorites are Redmond's Real SaltHimalayan Pink Salt, or Celtic Sea Salt.
- ¾ cup Extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Toast your walnuts or other nuts in a heavy frying pan on medium heat. Keep a sharp eye on them, they go from doing nothing to burning in the blink of an eye once they get hot. Toss a few times while they are on the flame and when it starts to smell fragrant, take them off the heat. If they are not very toasted yet, leave them in the hot pan for a few more minutes, this will keep cooking them.
- Pour your nuts into the food processor bowl, and once cooled, add the grated or crumbled parmesan cheese.
- Process on high for a few seconds.
- Chop your herbs into smaller chunks.
- Add the herbs. You may need to pulse a few times to chop up half of the herbs before you have room to add the rest. Process until you have a smooth paste.
- Add the salt.
- Turn on the processor and while it runs, slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Process till well combined and you have a nice smooth paste.
- Now you have an awesome pesto that you can use like any pesto. If you want to store it, put it into a jar and pour a small amount of olive oil over the top to prevent browning. You can keep it in the refrigerator for a week, or freeze it for 4-6 months.
Notes
How to use the pesto
- Toss with your favorite pasta
- Toss with grain or rice for a rice bowl
- Top baked potatoes
- Top sliced meat roast
- Put a pad on poached fish (I love to add lemon balm leaves to the pesto for this or a little preserved lemon paste or lemon zest and juice)
- Serve in a jar as a dip on a charcuterie board. This is just really great with cheese.
- Really amazing on egg dishes
- My favorite breakfast sandwich is a slice of sourdough bread topped with chevre or quark cheese, cantaloupe hot sauce and a thick layer of pesto (Sometimes I mix all of the above and put it in a jar as an easy sandwich spread). This all gets topped with a couple of medium fried eggs. Really messy to eat and incredibly delicious! Just had this a minute ago, 😁Yumm!
- To tell the truth, it's a superb treat eaten with a spoon right out of the jar.