Carrot Top Pesto

Carrots are delicious, nutritious, and can be used in many ways – and so are their bright green tops. Don’t throw those away!

Carrot tops, like the tops of many other root veggies, can be used in similar ways that you use other leafy greens – salads, sauteed, pureed into a sauce. Has anyone tried to make carrot top chips? Hm, the leaves are probably too small and will turn out as crumbs, but it might be something I have to try at some point.

It is very true that here in California, that we can be a bit spoiled when it comes to food, especially produce. We have the farmer’s market every week (except the winter, but then we travel to the next city over and go to their humongous one) and I belong to a CSA-type program where instead of a box of produce showing up at my door, I go to the farm and pick everything myself. This is something that Paxton and I share. We both learn more about where our food comes from, how it grows, meet great new people, and of course, get the freshest possible produce.

This past week, we got to dig up our own carrots (Paxton proved better at this than I was), I noticed that others had pulled off the greens and left them scattered amongst the other carrots still waiting in the ground. So I picked them up and added them to my bunch.

This pesto came together in just minutes (good thing too, because we were hungry!). I probably had about 2 bunches of carrot tops from all the extras I picked up that others had discarded, so I doubled the batch.

I ended up drizzling this on top of fried eggs, homemade herbed buttermilk biscuits, quickly sauteed breakfast radishes, and strawberries, topped with fresh dill. All of the produce and herbs had been picked fresh just a couple of hours before.

Print Recipe

Carrot Top Pesto

Save those tops to carrots! Just a handful of ingredients and about 5 minutes of prep time make this delicious and versatile pesto.

Prep Time5 mins

Author: Rachel at Fridge Two Table

Ingredients

• 1 bunch carrot tops
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• ¾ tsp sea salt
• 1 cup olive oil

Instructions

• Wash the carrot tops well to make sure there are no lingering bugs or dirt.
• Place all ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the carrot tops are finely chopped but not quite pureed.
• Mix into pasta, drizzle over pizza, mix into roasted veggies and potatoes, or serve in any way you can thing of. Enjoy!