Got carrots from a farmer’s market or from your own garden? Don’t throw away those carrot greens! They are totally edible and are really tasty! Make this carrot top pesto instead.
Young carrot tops have a little bit of a flavor of carrots, but mostly they taste a lot like parsley. When purchasing carrots, you’re being kinder to the environment by selecting carrots with the greens attached. Because by using those green tops you keep them out of landfills where they may not get properly commercially composted. And you are also being frugal as you now have two vegetables for the price of one!
You can use them as a substitute in any recipe that calls for fresh parsley. But this recipe is a great way to use them up and keep them out of the garbage. Make sure to rinse the carrot greens really well, because with the texture of the leaves, they do tend to hold soil and sand.
So this green pesto sauce is a super easy recipe for using carrot tops. Just make sure to remove the tough stems of the carrot greens prior to putting in the food processor. I added a handful of spinach to the carrot greens to enhance the texture and color. And to make a bigger batch. But this isn’t necessary if you don’t need them.
The great thing about this recipe is you don’t really need to measure – just eyeball the ingredients and keep adding until you get the right velvety pesto consistency.
Carrot Top Pesto ingredients
- In addition to the greens, you’ll need
- a half cup of either walnuts or pine nuts,
- 2 cloves of fresh garlic,
- some olive oil – this is the ‘eyeballing it’ part of the recipe.
- sea salt to taste
Put all of your dry ingredients in the food processor. That’s everything except the olive oil.
Process until everything is very small and blended.
Slowly add the olive oil until the pesto is smooth and almost creamy.
Pack the carrot top pesto into a mason jar.
Use as you would any other basil based pesto – in pasta, on pesto pizza, over vegetables, etc. The carrot top pesto will keep in the refrigerator for several weeks.
Check out these posts for more ideas to eat your garden ‘scraps’
