Parsley Pesto

With all of the parsley still in my garden (!) I’ve been working on ways to preserve this year’s harvest. I’ve made and frozen a bunch of chimichurri, I’ve given a bunch away, I’ve added it to salads like crazy and there is still a healthy and prolific row living in the garden.

This delicious parsley pesto is a great way to preserve the fresh flavours of parsley. The pesto is super easy to make and it tastes fabulous with the squash that I also have a ton of. Two birds with one stone – gotta love that.

Lots of different herbs can be used to make pesto, with basil being the most obvious. The basic recipe is similar no matter which herb you use. Fresh herbs, olive oil, nuts of some sort, parmesan cheese and garlic. There are variations but this is the basic idea. The proportions are pretty loose too and you can definitely adjust to suit your tastes.

In this version I used a combination of pine nuts and almonds, which I happened to have had on hand. I did not have quite enough pine nuts for the amount of parsley that I was using so a combo did the trick. It also created a nice chunky pesto with a wee bit of crunch to it.

I made a decent sized batch, using up about 4 to 5 cups of my parsley, but even then it barely made a dint in my remaining stores in the garden. This quantity made just under a cup and a half, most of which I froze in a silicone tray intended for large ice cubes. Each compartment holds about 90 ml, or just over 1/3 of a cup but I could see freezing it in regular sized ice cube trays too and just using as many as you needed for a recipe. I love freezing this sort of things in silicone as they are easily portioned out and then popped out of their trays or cups and then wrapped individually and frozen.

The remaining 1/4 cup of pesto was mixed with, guess what? Spaghetti squash! I also love pestos as a seasoning for grilled chicken or fish, or try mixing it into potato salad.

Keep on squashing on.

Parsley Pesto

Total Time: 15 minutes

Author: www.miasdailydish.com

This fresh green pesto is a great way to savour the summer flavour.

Print

Ingredients

• 4 C fresh Italian parsley leaves
• 1 large garlic clove
• 1/2 C grated parmesan cheese
• 1/2 C pine nuts or blanched almonds
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 C olive oil

Instructions

1. Put all ingredients into a food processor or high powered blender.
2. Pulse food processor or blend on low, stirring occasionally, until mixture is uniform but still chunky looking
3. Freeze if desired in 1/4 C portions

Recipe Notes

You can play around with the proportions of this recipe. Like your pesto cheesy? Add more parmesan. Need a little more bite? Toss in a few extra nuts. You get the idea.