Lemon Kale Pesto
My not quite traditional, but personal favorite, take on pesto. The brightness of the lemon adds the best pop of flavor to salads, pizza, and pasta. And plus, it’s a super yummy way to sneak some veggies into a meal and requires just a few ingredients and a little bit of time to make!
This recipe makes 1 cup of pesto and can be stored in the fridge for up to 1 week and about 6 months in the freezer.
Backstory:
I first discovered a similar variation of pesto in the Half Baked Harvest: Super Simple Cookbook. In it, Tieghan has a recipe for Lemon Basil Pesto that’s used in several other recipes in the book including her Everything Bagel Salad, Potato and Burrata Pizza and Lemon Basil Pasta. While I love all those recipes, I sometimes found the flavor of the basil to be a bit intense, and wanted to try my own spin on it. So I adapted her recipe, with some inspiration from Chris Morocco’s recipe for Kale Pesto, and it’s become my go to whenever I need some pesto.
It’s a great sauce to keep on hand and is super easy and fast to make. You’ll only need a few ingredients that you probably already have on hand. The bright green color comes from the blanched kale, and makes for a beautiful (and delicious!) pesto. Using kale might seem a little odd, but trust me, once you try it out, you won’t look back!
Ingredients:
1 bunch of Lacinato (also known as Tuscan) kale, blanched
juice of one lemon
1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1 oz of parmesan, grated
2 tbsps raw pumpkin seeds (pepitas), toasted
1 garlic clove
2 tbsp warm water
pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
kosher salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste
Process:
Blanch the kale. Prepare sheet pan with several layers of papers towels, which you’ll dry the kale on after you blanch it. Get a large pot of salted boiling water going and remove the ribs from the leaves of kale. Before you boil the kale leaves, prepare a bowl with cold water and plenty of ice cubes. Once the pot of water is boiling, boil the kale leaves for about 30 seconds (or until they turn a bright green color). Fish them out with tongs or a spider scoop and quickly dunk them in the bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process, and then put the kale on the sheet tray with paper towels. Ring excess water from the kale with your hands or more paper towels and the kale dry on the tray as you complete the other steps.
Toast the pepitas. On the stovetop, set a small pan over medium-low heat and toast the pepitas for a few minutes, watching closely until starting to turn golden brown . You’ll know they’re done when they start smelling nice and toasted and little fleks start coming off of the seeds. Let them cool.
Grate the parmesan. I like to cut the parm into cubes and pulse it in the food processor to grate it. I find this is the most convenient as you can then just add the rest of the ingredients to the food processor and you don’t need to use a seperate tool to grate the cheese. One less dish to wash!
Make the pesto! After grating the parmesan, add to the food processor the kale, lemon juice, 1 clove of garlic, toasted pepitas, olive oil, a pinch of red pepper flakes and salt and ground pepper to taste. Pulse for about a minute (you may have to scrape down the sides). Add about 2 tbps of warm water and pulse again to get it to that final smooth consistency.