Wild garlic always introduces spring for me. Because when hiking in the mountains you can see it everywhere at the moment. During our last hiking tour to the Baumgartenschneid at the Tegernsee the whole forest was full of wild garlic and I collected diligently. At home I made a seductively delicious vegan wild garlic pesto out of it, the recipe of which I would like to share with you today.
Spring = Wild Garlic Season
Wild garlic is one of the most popular wild plants in spring because it can only be found a few weeks a year. From March to May (in the mountains partly also into June) you can collect the fine leaves, which remind you of garlic. You can collect wild garlic in forests, under bushes, on streams and even in some parks. It grows only in shady, humid places. A little tip: Once the wild garlic has started to bloom, you can no longer use it.
When picking, make sure you don’t confuse the wild garlic leaves with lily of the valley. But it’s very easy to tell the difference when you pick the leaves. Wild garlic leaves exude a distinct garlic smell. In order not to affect the plants too much, please always pick only one or two leaves per plant. And always wash well before consumption!
How Do You Eat Wild Garlic?
I really like to eat wild garlic as pesto with fresh pasta, but it also tastes great raw in salads or with herb butter. A blob of our vegan wild garlic pesto stirred in fresh hummus, spread on bread or used as a dip for vegetable sticks is by the way also fantastic. And best of all: our vegan wild garlic pesto keeps airtight for several months. I’ll tell you how it works in the recipe.
The fine-spicy wild garlic pesto goes very well with all sort of noodles, whether classic pasta or colourful vegetable noodles. We combined it with Fusilli and were thrilled. The pesto tastes spicy and fresh. The texture is pithy-fine, but not too fine and the fine garlic taste is simply mega delicious. In addition, the pesto is ready in less than 5 minutes and very easy to prepare. All you need is a multi chopper or a blender.
Wild Garlic Pesto
Ingredients
- 500 g fusilli or other pasta
For the Pesto:
- 150 g wild garlic
- 60 g walnuts
- 40 g pine nuts
- 150 ml olive oil
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 4 tbsp yeast flakes
- ½ tsp Salt
Instructions
- Fry the pine nuts in a hot pan without oil. Shake the pan regularly so that nothing burns. When the seeds have turned brown and have a pleasant smell, remove them from the pan.
- Wash the wild garlic leaves, pat dry and remove the stalks.
- Pour all the ingredients for the pesto into a blender jug and mix well.
- Season to taste with salt and pepper if necessary.
- Cook the pasta according to the package instructions. Mix pesto with freshly cooked pasta and serve.
Notes
Nutritions
If you liked this recipe for Wild Garlic Pesto you may also like one of these other Italian recipes:
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