Garlic scapes are the fresh green spring growth of garlic plants. They have a wonderful mild garlicy flavor and can be used in many ways. My personal favorite is garlic scape pesto! I have made this at the beginning of the summer for the past few years and it always symbolizes the unfolding of delicious seasonal produce rituals.
Take a moment to appreciate how beautiful the scapes are before chopping them up!
Thanks to my apartment kitchen, I have a dinky food processor and need to cut up my scapes before processing them. I typically cut them into 1/4 inch pieces and rinse them before making the pesto.
To make my pesto I combine the chopped scapes with pine nuts, parmesan cheese, and olive oil in the food processor. I don’t typically measure when I cook, but I would estimate it’s about 1 cup of chopped scapes for every 1/3 cup pine nuts, 1/3 cup parmesan cheese, and a generous drizzle of olive oil. I often add more oil while blending if the pesto needs more lubrication.
In the end you should have nice thick and chunky bright green pesto.
I use scape pesto a number of ways, but one of my favorites is tossing it with fresh pasta, tomatoes, and pecorino romano cheese.
Other best sellers include toasted crostinis with scape pesto, olive oil, and S&P or scape pesto as the base for the pizza instead of tomato sauce. Get creative with how you use the pesto — it’s delicious on anything!
Zoë, Thank you for sharing this recipe for my garlic scape round up! It’s now live. You can see the round up here: //growagoodlife.com/10-ways-use-garlic-scapes or Pin it for later: //www.pinterest.com/pin/313492824034778757/
Until this year, my only food processor was a small Kitchen Aid chopper. It would take me several batches to get all my pesto processed. Luckily, I was gifted a larger one for Christmas. I can’t wait to put it to use on a fresh patch of Garlic Scape Pesto. Thanks again.