Beyond Basil: Experimenting with Arugula and Garlic Scape Pesto

Reader Contribution by Carrie Williams Howe

While traditional basil pesto is always delicious, I was delighted years ago to sample an “everything but the kitchen sink” pesto at my local farmers’ market that opened my eyes to the possibilities for this condiment.  Virtually anything green and leafy can serve as a base for pesto – from kale to spinach and everything in between; and you’ll even find recipes for pesto made from peppers and other delicious garden treats.  Just start with a basic pesto recipe (like this one from Ball) to get your proportions and experiment from there!

This year I had a bumper crop of arugula right around the time that our garlic scapes were ready to be harvested, so I pulled together this pesto variation and was more than pleased with the results. 

Note: One trick I also picked up lately is blanching the greens before putting all of the ingredients into the food processor.  While the tip is usually given as a trick to keeping your pesto brighter in color, blanching basil can decrease the flavor a bit too much (see this discussion on Kitchen).  In this recipe, I like blanching the arugula because it can take a little bit of the bitterness out of the leaves, especially if they are overgrown (mellowing the flavor is a good thing in this case).  Thus, my compromise is blanching the arugula leaves, but not the basil.

Recipe: Arugula and Garlic Scape Pesto

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