How to Manage a Surplus of Almost Any Fresh Greens — Make Pesto!
I’ve been experimenting with different kinds. I’ll tell you which ones are good.
Pesto has a lot going for it
- Flavor. It is delicious(and some of my favorite kinds don’t involve basil).
- Popularity. Half of the people in my family don’t care for cooked greens, but they will happily snarf down pesto. It’s a crowd-pleaser.
- Nutrition. We are eating a lot of greens right now, because it’s summer in the garden, and we also get half a CSA share. Everyone knows greens have a lot of vitamins and minerals, but their vitamin K content especially interests me. Deficiencies in vitamin K have long been linked to type-2 diabetes, hypertension, and poor cardiovascular health. I feel extra-good about eating my greens since I read this study about vitamin K and COVID outcomes (it is not yet peer-reviewed, but promising).
- Versatility. We enjoy it on pasta, on pizza, as a dip, drizzled over roasted veggies, on grilled meats or tofu, on scrambled eggs.
- Convenience. On a busy weeknight in winter, a jar of pesto from the freezer and a box of pasta can be a lovely dinner that is so easy to make, a kid can do it. Pesto is the ultimate convenience food.
A Pesto Roundup
Here are the ones I have tried, and some tasting notes for each:
Arugula Pesto
This is my favorite kind of pesto. I might like it better than basil pesto. I made it with young arugula, results may vary with tougher mature arugula. It is very similar to your typical basil pesto in flavor and consistency. One thing that I really appreciated was the way it retained its bright green color for 4 days in the fridge. I made the Serious Eats recipe linked in the photo. It was lovely served over salmon. It can be used pretty much interchangeably with basil pesto.
Basil Pesto
This is your traditional pesto. It’s good on, well, pretty much everything.
One thing that bugs me about basil pesto is it’s tendency to discolor if stored in the fridge. Putting a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pesto can help somewhat, and so can carefully drizzling a layer of oil on top of the pesto. I lean toward just enjoying it freshly-made and then freezing the leftovers, since discoloration isn’t a problem when frozen. The recipe linked above has a good explanation of how to freeze pesto in ice cube trays and then vacuum seal the cubes to store. I don’t have a vacuum sealer, but if I did I might try this, especially for the cilantro pesto below. My method is to freeze pesto in canning jars in the size I think will be convenient — for my family, that’s usually half-pint jars. I like this because there is no plastic involved.
Cilantro Pesto
Cilantro is a pretty low-status green in my house, and in my garden, because I am the only one who likes it. I really like it, though, so I plant a container every spring. Cilantro has a pretty short harvest window compared to a lot of other greens, and I always end up needing to deal with a lot of it at once before it bolts. My solution is to make pesto.
While most pestos contain some cheese (Parmesan, Romano, or Asiago, usually), cheese in cilantro pesto feels…wrong. The recipe linked above is a nice one that doesn’t contain cheese. If you don’t agree about leaving out the cheese, there are lots of recipes that include it. Think about what you will use the pesto for later, and go from there.
With cilantro I just as often leave out all the ingredients but the cilantro and the oil and make a very, very basic pesto. Cilantro pesto is also the one pesto I freeze in an ice cube tray instead of jars — simply because I don’t use as much of it. The cubes are convenient to thaw and throw into homemade salsa, scrambled eggs, soups, stews, beans, and so on. They can also be used to dress up a portion of pasta, rice or other grains, or pasta salad. Basically, you can use it anywhere you would use fresh cilantro, and it is already chopped.
With cilantro, I throw the stems in the food processor along with the leaves. They will get chopped up very finely and they have just as much flavor as the leaves, so the final result is the same whether you include the stems or not.
I have recently become aware of Jack Monroe’s frugal recipes, and I just ordered a copy of her “A Year in 120 Recipes.” I understand she has something called “Thai-style Pesto-y Stuff” which is basically a tricked-out cilantro pesto. I will report back once I try it out. See Kale Pesto, below, for a link to her blog and her kale pesto recipe.
Carrot Top Pesto
I was suspicious about this one. But when I thinned my carrots, I found myself with a mass of carrot tops and I thought I might as well give it a whirl.
We liked it, and I will make it again. Because the greens are relatively tough, they don’t break down as small in the food processor and because of that, they don’t emulsify as well in the oil. Can you see in the photo below how the oil has separated slightly around the pesto? Not a big deal as a dip for bread, but not like traditional pesto. Also noteworthy in this photo: the barley, carrot, and pea salad I made to use my garden carrot thinnings, snow peas, and mint.
The loss of that silky, emulsified texture makes me think that I would not enjoy this one as much on pasta. I served it with sourdough bread for dipping, and we liked that a lot. I imagine it would also be great drizzled over roasted vegetables as directed in the Cashew Carrot Top Pesto recipe.
Spinach Pesto
I have made a lot of pesto from spinach. With some dried basil added, you can make a winter pesto that gets sort of close to the flavor of traditional basil pesto. I usually just make basic spinach pesto, though, and it is silky and delicious on its own.
This recipe is straight-up genius, incorporating the flavors of spanakopita. I like to make it in June, when I have a lot of dill and mint in the garden. I include this recipe as a reminder that sometimes mixtures of greens and herbs are exactly what you need — pesto doesn’t have to highlight just one. Also, pesto cheeses don’t have to be hard like Parmesan. This one uses feta, which is unusual for pesto but the briny flavor and crumbly texture work well here.
Chard Pesto
I was kind of suspicious about this one, too, but to my surprise, this one was another favorite of the whole family. We had it with pasta, and it was lovely and silky. Walnuts are my go-to nut for making most pestos. I can’t afford pine nuts, and I think walnuts are just fine. Like the arugula pesto, chard pesto retains its green color very well for several days in the fridge. It’s a little mellower than the arugula pesto, but a definite winner in it’s own right.
Parsley Pesto
I have been making variations on this pesto for years. It is a great winter pesto when parsley is the last green left in the garden. Its robust flavor really works with hearty winter food, too. It is great with steak, brushed on pizza, with winter squash and pumpkin, drizzled over baked potatoes or roasted root vegetables, and of course, with pasta. I don’t often freeze this one because parsley lasts through most of the winter where I live, so it’s easy to make it fresh as needed, but it does freeze just fine.
Kale Pesto
I haven’t actually made this pesto yet. I am including it because I have a lot of kale in the garden and I fully intend to test it out, but maybe not for a while because the kale will stand in the garden for many more months, but my other garden greens demand to be reckoned with.
I only recently discovered Jack Monroe’s blog and ordered one of her cookbooks, but I am excited to explore further. She writes about the kind of cooking I like to do — very frugal and making good use of what you have. I will add to this post once I try the kale pesto out. Apparently this recipe became rather controversial in food writing circles. Poor people don’t eat kale, they say? I guess I better notify all the people I know who specifically eat kale for the very reason that it is prolific in the garden and dirt cheap.
Garlicky Leaf, Stem, and Core Pesto
Speaking of dirt cheap, I include one last pesto, along with a reminder that recipes don’t need to be followed to the letter. Greens and oil are the basic elements, and you can explore from there. Do you want to mix different greens and herbs together? Do you want to include nuts? Should you stick with walnuts, or change it up with pistachios, or almonds, or any other kind of nut? Cheeses, if you include them, should usually be hard and flavorful, but I can imagine a soft goat cheese working well in some cases. Garlic or not? Other spices like red pepper flakes or chili powder? Does your pesto need some lemon, or some lime, or some sumac powder?
This recipe is from Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal. I often make it when I follow her procedure for “striding ahead” by roasting an oven full of vegetables and prepping a bunch of greens all at once for convenient eating through the week.
As you prep your broccoli, cauliflower, chard, kale, collard greens, cabbage, or whatever other greens, set aside the stems, leaves, and cores. When your have about 4–5 cups of all these parts you might normally throw away, slice or dice everything into 1/2 inch pieces. If your broccoli stems are tough, peel the skin off or it will leave unappealing bits in your pesto. Put everything in a pot with 3 cloves of garlic, 1/2 cup of olive oil, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Add water to cover by half. Cook at below a simmer until everything is “smashable.” Add water as needed. Puree. Tamar says it is good “dolloped on toast and grated with Parmesan, or treated as a side dish and served with fish or meat, or with a cup of Parmesan cheese added, mixed with hot pasta,” which is usually how I serve it.
There are many more possibilities I haven’t explored. Asparagus pesto? Beet green pesto? Fennel frond pesto? I would love to hear your pesto thoughts and experiences. Bon appetit!
