Wild garlic pesto
Swap your traditional pesto for this wild garlic recipe during the spring while the leafy plants are in season and ready to be foraged.
- Quick and easy: Just 15 minutes are needed to whizz together this recipe, made with olive oil, pine nuts and parmesan.
- Preserve the bounty: The pesto can be frozen in an ice cube tray, ready to add to recipes, or keeps in the fridge for a few weeks – see Make Ahead.
- Delicious in all types of recipes: Stir through pasta for a speedy and satisfying dinner or add to lasagne, serve with vegetables or dot on a chicken traybake.
Try it in this spring pasta dish with asparagus and peas.
Ingredients
- 150ml olive oil
- 1 bunch spring onions, finely sliced
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed
- 200g wild garlic leaves (or spinach, see Know-how)
- 20g fresh chives, snipped
- 100g pine nuts
- 100g finely grated parmesan or vegetarian alternative
- 1 tsp caster sugar
Method
- Heat 3 tbsp of the olive oil in a small frying pan. Add the spring onions and half the crushed garlic, then cook gently for 2 minutes or until softened. Transfer to a food processor and leave to cool.
- Meanwhile, slice the wild garlic leaves (or spinach) into thin strips (see Know-how). Add them to the food processor with the remaining crushed garlic, the snipped chives, pine nuts and the rest of the olive oil, then blend to a paste.
- Spoon into a bowl, then stir in the parmesan, sugar and some salt to taste.
FAQs
Wild garlic appears as early as late February (depending on the weather) but reaches its peak in early April when it may be flowering.
The leaves have a fresh garlicky taste that’s punchy when raw but mellows when cooked.
Nutrition
- 189kcal Calories
- 18g (3.7g saturated) Fat
- 4.5g Protein
- 1.7g (2.4g sugars) Carbs
- 0.6g Fibre
- 0.14g Salt
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