Recipe – Arugula Pesto
I love to make recipes in batches that can be made ahead, frozen, and pulled out for another time. This week I bought the most beautiful bag of arugula from Polk Fresh Foods, which is a local farm here in North Carolina. I was lucky enough to find someone who lives close to me and distributes their produce, out of her home! I have been making arugula smoothies and arugula salads, which have been fresh and amazing, but I wanted to be able to find a way to make something with the arugula that I can freeze and enjoy later when arugula isn’t in season anymore. Pesto came to mind. The garlicky, nutty, smooth combination of the nuts, greens and olive oil makes the perfect spread or sauce. I love pesto on spaghetti squash in the fall and on zucchini spirals in the summer. You could also spread it on a crostini and serve as an appetizer. This recipe should make enough to get me through the next few months.
I served mine with steamed zucchini that I ran through my spiral vegetable slicer. I used two “cubes” of defrosted pesto. It was delicious, light and filling! This could be a yummy vegetarian entrée, or as a side to a piece of grilled meat.
Ingredients
- 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
- ½ cup toasted pine nuts
- 1 large garlic clove
- 4 cups fresh arugula
- ½ cup parmesan cheese
- sea salt to taste
Instructions
- In a blender (I used my Vitamix), layer ½ cup olive oil, nuts, parmesan cheese and arugula. Blend until it is chopped very fine. Slowly add the remaining ½ cup of olive oil through the hole at the top of the blender. Add salt to taste. Pour the mixture into an ice tray and freeze. Once frozen, you can transfer the arugula cubes to a Ziploc bag and freeze until needed.
