Around here, we just pulled out what was left of our winter cilantro crop from the smaller hoop house. I had a grocery sack full of it in the fridge, and i stood gazing at it yesterday just before dinner. I want to ask you dear reader, what would you have done with it? The old me, say a few months ago, that me, would have thrown it away. At that time, I only ate it fresh in soups, salads, and other foods like salsa and burritos etc. The new and transformed me, made cilantro pesto with it. Have you ever heard of that? Have you ever tried it? OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! I’m going out on a limb here and saying that I like it more than basil pesto. Yup, it’s that good, and so easy to make. If you have a food processor, get to it!
Cilantro Pesto
1 bunch cilantro, fresh (or more if you’re hooked)
5 cloves garlic minced
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup walnuts
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
salt to taste
Put it all in your food processor and whiz it up. Taste it. If it doesn’t taste how you want it to, add more salt, or more walnuts, or more cheese, or even more oil. It’s something you have to work with and design how you like it. Cook up some of your favorite kind of pasta and add the pesto to the pasta and stir it up. Serve and enjoy. It’s totally yum, it would even turn a cilantro hater, like my son into a cilantro lover.
I add a little sesame tahini to my pestos and it adds more depth and a whole lot of calcium…cuts down on the amount of more expensive nuts, too…and then there is parsley pesto and chickweed pesto…
GREAT Suggestion Karyn! Chickweed Pesto?! Holy Moly, that’s everywhere!!!! I’ll try that next!
Will totally be trying that in this cilantro loving household!
YES YES YES Amanda, I made it last fall, I did not use the cheese (to costly and to Italian spelling) BUT, I jared it up 1/4 pts and froze it. JUST REALLY YUMMY Taco’s, and all my other Mexican dishes, it is even great on warm pasta as a side dish or on rice.
You go girl
I love cilantro too. Did you you know that cilantro grabs ahold of heavy metals in the body and carries them out? So your love of cilantro is also an accidental heavy-metal cleanse. Sweet!
I had no idea it was a hyperaccumulator! Awesome. I knew it was good for your heart. Funny how so many people are anti-cilantro.