Stinging Nettle Pesto (Dairy & Oil-Free)

Stinging Nettle Pesto (Dairy & Oil-Free) Recipe

By VegetaFull

🔪Prep Time: 10 minutes

👩‍🍳Cook Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

FOR DEACTIVATING THE STINGERS:

6 cups of stinging nettle leaves (leaves with stems, if the shoots are young and tender) cleaned and well rinsed

2 quarts of boiling water with

1 tablespoon of kosher salt

Cold water bath for cooked nettles

FOR THE PESTO:

Cooked stinging nettles (see quantity above)

1 cup of walnuts

1 garlic clove, minced (use 2 cloves if you love garlic)

2½ tablespoons of lemon juice

2 teaspoons of lemon zest

¾ teaspoon of fine sea salt (we are going to add salted nettle broth later)

½ teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast

½ cup of cooled nettle broth (more if you want a pasta sauce consistency)

Instructions

1First, bring 2 quarts of water and 1 tablespoon of kosher salt to a boil. Using a gloved hand, immerse the stinging nettles into the boiling water and cook until just wilted, about 30-60 seconds. Immediately remove the nettles and plunge them into a cold-water bath to halt the cooking and preserve the vibrant green color. Save the salted cooking liquid (nettle broth). We will add that to the pesto later.

2After they are cooled, remove the nettles from the cold water and squeeze them into a ball with your hand, wringing out all the excess water. (At this point you can freeze the nettles for a later use.) Chop the ball into smaller pieces so that it will be easier to blend into a pesto.

3Add 1 cup of walnuts to a food processor and pulse until coarsely ground, followed by the nettles. Pulse until the walnuts and nettles are nicely blended. Add the minced garlic, lemon juice and zest, salt, pepper and nutritional yeast. Pulse until a chunky paste begins to form.

4Next add the reserve nettle broth, and process, to thin the pesto until a creamy, spreadable consistency is reached. You may need to add more broth if using as a pasta sauce. I like a looser pesto to toss with pasta and grains, and a thicker pesto to spread on flat bread or vegetables. Taste for flavor and add more salt, pepper or lemon as desired.

5NOTES: 4 cups of fresh green carrot tops are also excellent in place of the nettles.

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Earth of Maria

Earth of Maria

I’ve never been good at introductions because when they’re needed, I seem to forget every single interesting thing about myself. But I guess we’ll start with the basics. My name is Maria, and I am a twenty year old student from England. I study history at the University of Oxford and live in Brighton, but I was born in Russia and moved to the UK around ten years ago. I’m a vegan foodie (as you can probably tell by this blog), a lover of long walks and somewhere awkwardly between extrovert and introvert. Veganism and healthy eating are a huge part of my life, given that both have helped me overcome an unhealthy relationship with food. Finding balance took a lot of time and patience. But, as with many things in life, hard work proved 110% worth it! Whenever I’m not in the kitchen or working in my room, you’ll often find me at the gym, or at the grocery store looking for inspo for my next recipe.