Our parsley pesto was so tasty, and such a vibrant green

With all the warm, sunny, spring weather lately, you might have noticed that your herbs have started growing a lot more vigorously. If you don’t cut them back regularly during this flush of growth, they’re going to go to seed. Going to seed spells the beginning of the end for typically annual herbs such as parsley and coriander. So make sure you get the scissors out and keep cutting them back often.

Our parsley plants have nearly tripled in size in the space of a couple of weeks. In an effort to not waste them, we decided to have a go at making some pesto. We reckon the vibrant green pesto we made was very tasty. We’ve tried it as a dip with crackers for a delicious snack. We also stirred it through some pasta for a quick and easy meal over the weekend.

Making pesto is very easy, and a great activity to share with the kids. Careful though, it can get messy! The ingredients we used below were approximate, just alter their ratios to get a taste and texture that suits your needs.

Parsley Pesto Recipe

Our definition of “lots”, the amount of parsley we used in our pesto

Ingredients

• Lots* of curled parsley. You can also use Italian Parsley.
• 100g crumbed walnuts
• 100mL olive oil
• 100g grated Parmesan cheese

*See the photo for our definition of “lots”!

Method

Wash the parsley well, and dry with a salad spinner or tea towel. Trim off all of the stalks and put in the compost. The less stalk material you include in the pesto, the less stringy fibrous material you’ll get in the end product.

Make sure you remove as much of the stalk material from the parsley.

Add the parsley, walnuts and Parmesan cheese to a food processor. We don’t have one of these so we used a mixing wand and a Pyrex measuring jug instead. In hindsight, this is the messy option!

Process the ingredients and slowly add olive oil until the desired consistency is reached.

The parsley pesto will keep in the refrigerator for up to a week. We like to freeze meal sized portions for quick and easy pasta meals in the future.