« Back to recipes

Carrot-top Pesto

Image of Carrot-top Pesto

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: None

Serves: 20

Scale to servings

Adapted from: Own recipe

The first thing everyone asks me when I mention this recipe is whether carrot tops are poisonous. They're definitely not! [1] [2] [3]. The taste is something like an earthy variant of parsley. The recipe scales easily, though you might want to upgrade the hand blender for a full-sized one once you're above 50g or so of carrot-tops. On one test I got about 60g from ten small carrots; the photo is from that batch. The parmesan is optional since I prefer to let the carrot-top taste come through more strongly. (And I often serve with parmesan anyway)

Ingredients

    For every 20g carrot-tops:

  • 30 ml extra-virgin olive oil
  • ¼ tsp sea salt
  • 3 tbsp (15 g) toasted pine nuts
  • 30 g parmesan (optional)
  • 5 g MSG (optional replacement for parmesan)
Method
  1. Rinse and chop the carrot tops very roughly.
  2. Blend the carrot tops, oil, and salt with a hand blender.
  3. Add the pine nuts and blend until the consistency looks about right.
  4. If using parmesan, add now and give a quick blend.
  5. Serve with pasta, gnocchi, or anything else you fancy.