A recipe for ramp pesto
I’m a red sauce gal through and through. As a child, when my sister was demanding only pasta with butter and more parmesan cheese on it than you can even imagine (whatever you are imagining, double it), I was strictly red on top. It took until adulthood to really appreciate the fresh, herbal quality of a pesto, and now I like it all kinds of ways—on other vegetables, on sandwiches, on classic pasta, with carrot tops or kale instead of basil. But after a few years I’ve come to realize that my favorite way to pesto is ramp pesto.
We’ve gone over the fleeting, beautiful quality of ramps here, and to me, pesto is the simplest way to extend their shelf-life into the other seasons. You can make a bunch with wilting ramps, freeze it, and then dole it out to yourself when the thought of a ramp seems very far off. And though the exact ingredients for the ramp pesto I made this week differ from the recipe below, the proportions are almost right, which is mostly what matters: 1 cup of your vegetable of choice, 1/4 to 1/2 a cup of olive oil, and I up the amount of parmesan to at least 1/2 a cup, plus add some lemon juice
My dad was definitely a big fan of fresh produce; I often think of him standing over the kitchen sink, eating a tomato like it was an apple, salting as he went. Pesto was no exception to this rule; the recipe here I remember having many times, though I’m sorry to say I probably grumbled consuming it.
That doesn’t mean I’m fully on board with it now: I am not a fan of sundried tomatoes, so I definitely wouldn’t be putting those in regardless of what else is included (though am curious about how they’d work all blended up, so maybe I should try it just once). Usually when I make ramp pesto I use a combo of the above and this good Food52 recipe, which suggests subbing walnuts for pine nuts—they’re much cheaper and I like their earthier texture. Otherwise, I’d say the most fun thing about ramp pesto is it cuts down your ingredients: whereas in a typical green pesto you’d need garlic + some green herb or leafy vegetable, ramps work as both, allowing you to skip the garlic.
A really nice thing about classic pesto is how sharp and pungent it is, and ramp pesto takes that flavor profile to the next level; it’s super peppery, and I found myself scraping the sides of the Cuisinart with bagel chips to snack up every last bit of this batch. So while it wouldn’t be my first recommendation to use the expensive ramps you procure from the farmer’s market on this, if you have some that are on their way out, it’s a nice way to extend their shelf life and give your cold future self the gift of spring.
Donations Time: Last month, $100 went to Kauai Food Bank. This month, donations will go to Midwest Food Connection, which brings “food education to students and their families” in the Twin Cities. You can switch your subscription to increase the amount we donate each month for $5 a month or $30 a year right here.