This post contains affiliate links.
I hate food waste. If you’ve seen my Instagram stories, you’ve seen me freeze every scrap of vegetable and herbs to make homemade veggie stock. Last week my Imperfect Produce box came with carrots with their tops still attached! I’d actually never gotten carrots with their tops and they were so beautiful, I had to use them and not let them go to waste! Imperfect Produce is a CSA-style box where you can get fresh produce that would normally be thrown away due to slight imperfections or excess stock delivered to your home. (not sponsored, just love the product!) In the name of decreasing food waste, I made a quick carrot top pesto!
I substituted pine nuts with pumpkin seed and only used a few leaves of basil to give it that pesto flavor! If you don’t have basil, feel free to omit it, the carrot tops on their own are super flavorful as well! If you want to make this carrot top pesto vegan, just substitute the parmesan with nutritional yeast or vegan parmesan. Another tip is to save the carrot peels for vegetable broth! Just add the peels to a freezer bag with onion peels, potato peels, herb stems, etc . When it’s full just dump it all into a pot with water and boil for an hour. Strain and boom! You got homemade veggie broth!
It’s such a simple recipe, and I love that I can use up the entire carrot. Peels and top for broth, carrots for dinner or salad and tops for pesto! No waste! This carrot top pesto works great as a dressing on top of roasted carrots or on pasta! I like to freeze mine and then thaw it when I use it. What’s your best way to use up an entire vegetable?
Print
Carrot Top Pesto
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 1 cup of pesto 1x
Ingredients
- 2 cups of carrot tops
- 1/4 cup loosely packed basil leaves
- 1/3 cup roasted pumpkin seeds
- 1/3 cup parmesan cheese (or nutritional yeast to make this vegan)
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1/3 cup of olive oil
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Add all the ingredients except the olive oil to a food processor. Blend until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and slowly drizzle in the olive oil while pulsing the pesto.
- Spoon into a glass jar and top with enough olive oil so the pesto is completely covered. Store in the fridge for up to a week or freezer for 6 months.
