Nut Free Salad Pesto
Growing your own food in a garden sometimes means you have an ubundance of a certain crop. We love to have different types for salad growing but sometimes can’t keep up without having some go to waste. A great solution we have found is making pesto with our extra salad. This particular pesto we used mustard cress, arugula and mint. There are many different options of greens that can be used to make a delicious pesto that are beyond the basic basil pesto. We have a lot of fun experimenting with different greens to create different flavor profiles and to use up any green we don’t want to lose.
We normally do not add nut to our pesto. The reason for this is because nuts can be expensive and we found we don’t need them to achieve a great tasting pesto. To make this pesto we take out our favorite kitchen tool the Vitamix and fill it with 40 % arugula 40 % mustard cress and 20 % mint. We add about 12 garlic cloves from our jar of confit garlic we have in the fridge. We don’t always prefer the taste of raw garlic so to make it easy we confit a bunch of garlic at once and keep it in a jar of oil and refrigerate. We add about 6 good quality anchovy filets, 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese and 1/2 a cup of olive oil.
We blend all this on high until the contents begin to get warm. We immediately spread the pesto out on a sheet pan and chill. This techinque helps to keep the pesto that bright green color.
Pesto is the perfect on anything! We like it for an easy pasta sauce, on meat and chicken, as a dipping sauce for potatoes, on eggs really the options are endless! Have fun and enjoy mixing different flavors to create your own favorite pesto!
Ingredients
- 1 Bunch Arugula
- 1 Bunch Mustard Cress
- 12 Cloves Confit garlic
- 6 Anchovy Fillets
- 1/2 Cup Parmesan Cheese
- 1/2 Cup Olive Oil
- Salt and Pepper
Instructions
- Blend all ingredients until warm. Immediately spread out and chill in refrigerator. Once chilled use or freeze.
