Wild Garlic Pesto
Spring time is wild garlic time! From around mid-March, the delicious greens are waiting to be picked. Every season I like to make an intense green vegan wild garlic pesto out of it, without cheese/parmesan, but with tons of fresh wild garlic and also with olive oil, sunflower seeds, pine nuts, nutritional yeast, and parsley. In any case, making wild garlic pesto yourself is worth it, because it tastes too good, is easy, quick to make, and goes well with a range of dishes, not just spaghetti. In this post, I will therefore also talk about the use of wild garlic pesto and show you a number of options what you can eat with it.
Various uses
The taste of wild garlic is spicy and aromatic. Being wild garlic, it also has a very garlic-like flavor. Especially if it is eaten raw, as with wild garlic pesto, you should not plan a date afterward. Unless you both eat from it.
I like to eat this vegan wild garlic pesto with spaghetti (e.g. as a topping on this creamy avocado pasta) , tagliatelle or linguine – as a pasta addict, I like to eat it with noodles. In addition to being used for spring pasta, this pesto also goes wonderfully with a variety of other dishes.
You can use wild garlic pesto like a dip and add falafel or potato pancakes. Also together with vegan feta and tomatoes, or a dollop on top of Hummus (or even mix it in at the same time) or on a bowl, fit perfectly.
You can also easily eat wild garlic pesto with boiled potatoes, oven vegetables or asparagus, or as a spread in a sandwich. This pesto can also be baked in bread, for example in a flatbread or on focaccia – nom! I plan to bake puff pastry rolls with wild garlic pesto for the first time, it has to taste so good.
As you can see, this intense and super tasty pesto goes well with so many dishes. If you have another idea, feel free to add it in the comments!
Wild garlic with wild garlic and …
This vegan wild garlic pesto is quite compact, because there is a lot of wild garlic in here. So it’s not “thin and oily” like it’s often the case with pesto. This is intentional in this case because that’s how I like it best. I like the intense taste of wild garlic, but I don’t want to completely drown the food in oil.
What else is in the pesto, apart from a lot of wild garlic? In any case, vegan wild garlic pesto is not made that much differently than non-vegan. The only difference is in the cheese, because if you prepare vegan pesto, of course, no parmesan goes into it.
You will find several other good ingredients in this vegan pesto, in addition to lots of wild garlic. Oil, olive oil to be precise. You can also replace part of it with pumpkin seed oil, but please do not heat your pesto afterward.
Sunflower seeds and pine nuts are also added to the pesto. You are also welcome to use other nuts such as walnuts or other seeds such as pumpkin seeds. Cashews or almonds would be another option, but I haven’t tried it myself.
Finally, nutritional yeast, and parsley. I think that it gives the wild garlic pesto freshness and rounds off the very intense taste. Oh yes, and salt and pepper, of course.
Fresh & Free
Since I prefer to use lots of wild garlic, and it grows in large quantities, at least here in Vienna, I always pick it myself. It starts in March and by April it’s slowly over.
The best thing: these huge amounts of wild garlic are a hundred times fresher than from the supermarket, but they don’t cost me a cent. In Vienna, picking wild garlic is almost a national sport. You can usually find me at Augarten. But there is also growing a lot at Prater. Or recently I discovered tons in the PΓΆtzleinsdorfer Schlosspark.
Harvesting wild garlic is very easy: “pinch off” the leaves with your fingernail and, ideally, collect it in a cloth sack to take home. At least I wash it at home before I put it to further use. And that brings me to the next final point…
Shelf life
Normally, when making pesto from herbs, they need to be dry, the pesto covered with plenty of oil, and the jar needs to be “sterile” (not surgical-style, but spotless). However, I have never stored a pesto for longer than a few days, simply in a Tupperware box or something similar.
Since I wash the wild garlic from the park anyway, the storage option in the form is out of the question for that reason alone. But it is possible to freeze the wild garlic pesto, namely in ice cube molds. The whole thing is super practical for dosing. By freezing, you can store your pesto until next spring.
But that’s not an option for me either, because I always eat so much wild garlic within a very short time that I don’t want to see it for months anyway, hahaha. I hope that you will love this pesto too, and I wish you bon appΓ©tit.
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Vegan Wild Garlic Pesto
Make a quick and easy vegan wild garlic pesto yourself, without cheese (Parmesan), but with sunflower seeds, pine nuts, olive oil, nutritional yeast, and parsley.
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp sunflower seeds
- 1 tbsp pine nuts
- 4 hands of wild garlic
- 1 hand of parsley (some of the stalks can be included)
- 8 tbsp olive oil (a little more if you like)
- 4 tbsp nutritional yeast *)
- 1 tsp salt
- Black pepper
Instructions
- Roast the sunflower seeds and pine nuts in a pan without oil until they turn light brown. Leave to cool on a plate.
- Wash the wild garlic. Spread out a tea towel, place the wild garlic on top, and pat dry with another tea towel.
- Now chop the roasted sunflower and pine nuts with the wild garlic and all the other ingredients (parsley, yeast flakes, salt, and pepper) in the food processor and mix.
- Slowly add the oil through the designated opening in the food processor. My Kitchenaid Food Processor *) has something like that. Otherwise, just add it to the other ingredients.
Notes
- Depending on how intense you like pesto, you could get by with it longer. I use this amount for about 500 grams of pasta - that's quite generous.
- If you want, you can increase the amount of oil a bit and also replace part of the olive oil with pumpkin seed oil.
- Instead of sunflower seeds and pine nuts, you can use any other nuts, especially walnuts.