I love pesto. It's a basil-based "sauce" that goes well with many dishes. I eat it in my pasta, on my sandwiches, as an aperitif... When you've run out of pesto and no basil to hand, there's an alternative. Make a pesto with carrot tops. It's very tasty and, what's more, it allows you to reuse the tops that would probably have ended up in the garbage can.

In my house, we often eat carrots. For a long time, I only bought carrots without tops - you know, the long green stalks at the end of the vegetable - because I didn't know what to do with them. This went against my habit of avoiding waste as much as possible and not throwing food away.

I discovered that you could make pesto with carrot tops! My taste for anti-waste and my love of pesto were about to merge to make a great carrot tops pesto. I tried it out when I bought my last carrots and was won over.

You can't expect the exact taste of traditional pesto, but you'll find the same texture and flavors. Except for the basil. Mix it with ravioli and a little cheese and you'll be telling me all about it.

I'm currently working on a recipe to use carrot peels to make chips. That way, I'll be able to use 100 % of the carrots I buy. Or maybe I should start eating carrots without peeling them. To be seen.

Carrot tops pesto

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Author: Thomas
Total Time: 10
Diet: Vegetarian

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Description

A good pesto of carrot tops, perfect to accompany a pasta dish with a little cheese.

Ingredients

Scale

70-80 gr carrot tops (about one bunch)

50 gr whole almonds or pine nuts

50 gr Parmesan cheese

juice of ½ lemon

1 2 cloves garlic

100 gr olive oil

pepper

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Instructions

Rinse the carrot tops in water, remove the stalks and chop coarsely.
Place the carrot tops, coarsely chopped garlic cloves, Parmesan, lemon juice and pine nuts (or almonds) in your blender.
Season with pepper and add about a third of the olive oil (about 30 g).
Blend until puréed.
Continue blending while slowly pouring in the remaining olive oil. Stop blending when you've reached the desired texture, either puree or liquidize.
Pour the pesto into a jar.
Close the jar and set aside in the fridge.

Notes

You can toast the nuts in the oven for extra flavor.

This pesto keeps for up to 2 weeks in the fridge and up to 2 months in the freezer.

Prep Time: 10
Category: Sauce
Cuisine: Italian

Carrot tops pesto