Does it sound yeuch to you? Perhaps but it works.
With many a raised bed in Ireland heaving under the weight of unused lettuce it is time to get experimental and use up the glut. According to STOPFoodWaste almost 50% of salad leaves that are bought are thrown away and I wonder how much of the GIY lettuce ends up being wasted too especially with the novice gardeners out there? I’m on a learning curve with the growing side of things and having sown all my lettuce seeds at once (rookie mistake) there’s a bounty of leaves ready for picking and there is only so much salad that one can eat.
Use this pesto as you would any other to spruce up a sandwich etc and it’s perfect on Fusilli Summer Chicken or Pesto Quesadilla
Lettuce Pesto
You will need:
50g pine nuts
50g parmesan
2 garlic cloves
half head butter leaf lettuce washed (or any lettuce leaves)
small handful flat-leaf parsley
200ml rapeseed or olive oil
Method:
Dry fry (no oil) the pine nuts in a non-stick pan over medium heat until lightly toasted (take care, burn easily)
Grate the parmesan
Crush the garlic
Roughly chop the lettuce leaves & parsley
Place everything in a food processor, pour in the oil and blend to desired consistency adding more oil if you prefer it runnier
Enjoy.
Til next time, Sheila.
I would of never thought top use lettuce in a pesto. As luck would have it I picked 4 heads, from the garden, this evening. So I will try this out tomorrow 🙂
It’s yummy! I used basil in place of parsley.
Basil is a fantastic substitute and so classic for a pesto. I love the fragrance as you chop it up. Enjoy x Sheila
This is a wonderful recipe. I was looking around for something to do with lettuce. I substituted walnuts in place of pine nuts. It tastes great.Thank you <3
P.S. Approximately how long will this recipe keep in the fridge?
I’m delighted that you are finding the lettuce pesto recipe useful. I would generally keep/use fresh pestos within 2 weeks, it should keep well if you top up with some rapeseed or olive oil.
You can also freeze the pesto use a bit of extra oil on top
I’ve yet to do try freezing pesto, thanks for the tip, x Sheila
Yum. Same problem, too much lettuce. This was pretty good over hot pasta with lots more cheese added! Thanks!
Delighted you tried it Melanie! and thanks for the feedback, Sheila.
Thank you! I have been desperately scouring the Internet for ways to use up my lettuce without making my family eat 3 salads a day. This sounds perfect!!
For what it’s worth, I have even made lettuce soup and roasted lettuce (!!!) and they were both also delicious! (The lettuce soup was more like a potato soup, but with 8 cups of garden greens blended in.)
Delighted that you found the lettuce pesto recipe useful! Apologies it took so long for me to reply – life / blog balancing out of kilter for the moment so it’s not getting as much attention for now.
Any thoughts on how to make this without pine nuts? Our school has a nut-free policy, and pine nuts are on that list. Thanks!!
I would just go ahead and make it with more Parmesan instead of any nuts, it will still be tasty!