Fresh, nutrient-dense pesto sauce made with beet greens and pistachios – a flavorful sauce to spruce up any meal!
Perhaps it’s my humble upbringing or my background in finance that makes me so cognizant of maximizing my output from my inputs. I try to be as resourceful as possible in all facets in life, and because I cook so frequently, I’m particularly tickled pink when I’m able to make the most out of my ingredients. Parts of produce you would normally just toss (carrot greens, beet greens, kale stems, vegetable peels and scraps, etc.) can be repurposed in many ways!
While I typically use beet greens (the long leafy stems attached to your big bulbous beets) the same way I use kale – in salads, stir fry, scrambled eggs, etc – I am jumping for joy over my new discovery – beet green pesto.
Truly, I don’t know why it took me this long to think of beet green pesto. I’ve made kale pesto, your standard basil pesto, parsley pesto, sun-dried tomato pesto, and roasted beet pesto, but it wasn’t until I was checking out the beet stems on my most recent bushel that it dawned on me to use the greens.
Not to be confused with regular beet pesto, beet green pesto is simply pesto sauce made using just the greens. You can use the actual beets and stems for other purposes, but the actual ingredient we care about for the purpose of this recipe is just the leaf. If you’re a regular buyer of bunches of beets, you’ll notice beets typically come with lots and lots of greens. Let’s make pesto sauce out of them, shall we?
What you do is chop the stems off of the beets. You can use the stems of broth, veggie stir fry, etc. We remove the leaves from the stems and chop the leaves.
Add the leaves to your food processor along with some nuts (I used pistachios), garlic (I used roasted – you can definitely use raw), sea salt, cider vinegar, and olive oil. Pulse the ingredients without the oil first to give them a good chop, then slowly stream the olive oil through the opening of the food processor while it’s on. I like my pestos super thick, so I don’t use a great deal of oil (½ cup for this recipe), but you can adjust the amount of oil to your heart’s desire.
I kept this recipe vegan by omitting the parmesan cheese, but if you’d like, feel free to add ½ to 1 cup of grated parmesan (or aged cheese of choice). As an alternative, you can add a couple tablespoons of nutritional yeast to keep the sauce vegan but give it that cheesy flavor.
As a side note, if you buy bunches of carrots, which include the stems and greens, you can use the carrot greens in pesto as well! Virtually anything leafy and green will work in pesto.
So there you have it! A super fresh superfood pesto that can be used to spruce up your pasta, sauteed veggies, chicken, fish, salads, etc. I’ll be showing you a recipe tomorrow using this very pesto! Enjoy!
Beet Green Pesto
Ingredients
- 2 cups beet greens tightly packed
- 1/2 cup shelled pistachios see note*
- 5 cloves roasted garlic see note**
- 1 teaspoon sea salt to taste
- 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
- 1/2 cup olive oil
Instructions
- Add all of the ingredients except for the olive oil to a food processor. Pulse 5 to 10 times, or until the ingredients are roughly chopped
- Turn the food processor on and slowly stream the olive oil through the opening at the top.
- Taste the pesto for flavor and add more sea salt, vinegar, or garlic to taste.
- Use immediately or transfer to a sealable container and refrigerate until ready to use. Pesto will stay fresh for up to 7 days in a sealed container in the refrigerator.
Just made this today and it is FABULOUS! Upped the (raw) garlic for our tastes and used several different types of beet greens since that is what was growing and ready. EXCELLENT bright green color! Made two batches and froze one. I will be keeping this recipe forever.
I love it! I’m so thrilled to hear you enjoy the recipe. Cheers to using up the full beet root!
Just wanted to let you know I made the pesto yesterday. Best I ever made! Was kind of blown away that it didn’t have Parmesan cheese! And I have never used ACV in a pesto before, always lemon juice.
Thank you for this great recipe!
I’m so happy you like it, Tyna! Thanks so much for the sweet note! 😀 xoxo
Thanks for the beet greens pesto inspiration! I had quite a few greens and transforming them into a garlicky pesto was just the perfect way to use them. Some of the greens were a little dehydrated and wilted so I put them in a bowl with ice for a couple of hours and it infused life back into them. We dolloped the pesto on roasted cauliflower for dinner and everyone was elated.
What a brilliant idea rehydrating the greens! So happy you like the recipe, Andrea! 😀 xo
What a clever idea! I always feel bad throwing away the greens from different veggies.
Same here! So happy you like the idea!
Oh mama! That shot with the roasted garlic and pistachios in the food processor…DROOL. I’m a sucker for some roasted gahlic. 😉
I love the idea to use up beet greens like these. So brilliant! It always kills me to throw away food scraps, especially now that I live in GA and they don’t collect organics. I will be sure to hit this recipe up next time I pick up some beets!
I threw away beet greens yesterday, not knowing that I could do anything with them. What an eye opener!
I used to do the same thing! The greens are just so easy to incorporate into virtually any dish. So happy this post helped! 😀
Love this! I consider beets with their greens a two-fer. 2 veggies for the price of one! Can’t wait to try it because beets are a staple in my kitchen!
Yaaaaas that’s how I see it, too! Economical, and soooo healthful! 🙂
I love using the whole vegetable… carrot top pesto is a staple in my kitchen! 🙂
Heck yes! Resourceful humans unite! I need to make carrot top pesto more often too. So tasty!
O I love it! I love and make sure I use every part of the veggie I can! I’ve done some carrot top pesto but never beet greens! Great idea!
Thanks, Rebecca! It’s such an easy recipe to prepare. Hope you try it!
What a lovely way to use beet greens – I too have made plenty of kale pesto but never thought of using beet greens – brilliance!
Thank you, Mary! I’m so glad you like the idea of turning beet greens into pesto. I’m pretty pumped on the way it turns out! 🙂
Love the earthy color of this pesto! I’ve made carrot top pesto and can’t wait to try this recipe as soon as I get a bunch of beets in my CSA box. Shouldn’t be too long now!