If you love Radishes and Pesto, you need to try this delicious Radish Leaf Pesto recipe.
Are you tired of wasting edible food parts like Radish tops? Or perhaps you need a Vitamin C boost?
Radish leaves are totally edible, and are often thrown away because people don’t know what to do with them. Their flavor is delicious, pungent, and peppery. However, they don’t make good salad greens. Due to their course texture, we recommend that you stick with pesto, or cook them until tender.
Next time you’re ready to saute up some radishes for dinner, you can make this delicious Radish leaf pesto to go with your meal, or freeze it until you’re ready to used it.
Since our radish leaf pesto recipe is vegan and natural, it’s Rasta and Ital friendly. The sauce is packed with nutrition and flavor!
Radishes are also high in Vitamin C, Calcium, and antioxidants.
Now,
We’re going to show you how to prepare this delicious green sauce in under an hour.
Preparation: 30 min.
Ready in: 30 min.
Ingredients
(Makes 1-2 cups)
- 2 large handfuls radish leaves (from about 10-11 radishes)
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tbsp nutritional yeast (use a hard cheese, like Parmesan, if you prefer)
- 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice (add more if you really like lemon)
- 1/3-1/2 cup raw walnuts, halves or pieces
- 1/2 tsp chili flakes
- 2 cloves garlic
- salt and pepper, to taste (use sea salt if you must, but we don’t recommend salt for those that follow an Ital diet.)
How to Make Radish Leaf Pesto
First, you will need to prepare the radish greens. They will require a through washing, because radish greens can be quite dirty. Wash them gently, by placing them in a sink filled with cool water, and move them around until they are clean. Next, remove the leaves from the sink drain and rinse the sink again. Make sure to repeat this process several times so that you can gently remove the dirt from your radish leaves.
Make sure you do this in cool water, so that you don’t wilt your radish leaves.
Once your radish leaves are clean, you will need to dry them. You can use a salad spinner or paper towels to do this.
After you leaves are dry, you’re ready for the first step.
Step 1
Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Add more oil to thin mixture, as desired. Most prefer a thick pesto.
Step 2
Scrape down the sides and blend again, until smooth and creamy.
Step 3
Enjoy immediately! Your leftover pesto will keep for a couple of days in the fridge. Furthermore, Rastaverse recommend’s that you freeze it in an ice cube tray and transfer your pesto cubes to a freezer bag for easier storage, so that you can easily enjoy your sauce at a later time.
Pesto pairs well with pasta, couscous, rice, potatoes, and any other way you would like serve it.
Recipe Notes
This sauce is delicious, however, you may need to tweak it to you liking. Adding more pine nuts, walnuts, or a combination of the two, will give this pesto a nutty taste. Sweeter nuts such as almonds, macadamia, or pistachios compliments the pungent, peppery flavor of the radish leaves. You can use them instead of pine nuts or walnuts.
In addition to that, you can jazz up this vegan radish pesto recipe by adding nutritional yeast to give this flavorful pesto a more traditional cheese-y flavor.
Not the mention, the links included in this post are Amazon purchase links, to help you shop for the supplies you need to make this recipe, if you are missing or cannot find everything.
There are many types of radishes; use whichever kinds you like.
Lastly, let us know below how your pesto turned out.
We’d love to hear how you customized it.
Leave a quick comment in the section below.
