Today friends, we’re talking two of my favourite things pesto and using the whole vegetable. According to the Australian Department of agriculture, water and environment in Australia alone, we waste around 7.3 million tones of food. That’s about 300kg per person that’s so much food! If you’re interested read up about on their website.

So in an effort to minimise our food waste, for most of the vegetables that we use we can actually eat the whole thing. No need to throw away the leaves or the top of that leek. There is a lot we can do to minimize our waste, but today I’m coming at you with a simple beetroot leaf pesto.

Beetroot leaf pesto

How to pesto..

The next time you’ve got some beets, don’t throw away those leaves hunny, make this beautiful beetroot leaf pesto. The colour of the stems and the leaves make the pesto a beautiful purple colour.

You will need a food processor to make this recipe, or a nutri bullet will also work. Pesto can be made in a mortar using a pestle to grind but that’s an arm workout and a half.

Beetroot leaves

You only need 6 ingredients to make this pesto, beet leaves, parsley, lemon, olive oil, garlic, almonds and salt & pepper. All you need to do is roughly chop the leaves chuck it all in the blitzer and whiz it all up hunny.

If you don’t have almonds on hand you can substitute for another nut or omit altogether if your not nuts about the idea (golly my puns are terrible).

Beetroot leaf pesto is boss stirred through some pasta or rice, or have it on toast in the morning with tomatoes or eggs and you’re sorted. If you’re into savoury pastry dishes, check out my recipe for my pesto zucchini and tomato tart where I used this pesto as a base. https://babestreetkitchen.com/pesto-zucchini-and-tomato-tart/

How to leaf..

Not that into pesto? that’s ok! you can use the leaves for so many other things. The leaves can be used the same as you would use spinach or kale or another green leaf.

Beetroot leaves

After some ideas? chuck your leaves into:

  • Salads
  • Soups
  • Sauces
  • Juices
  • pie/tarts

And whatever else you use your leaves for.

The next time you’ve got your beets, don’t throw away the beautiful leaves. Have a go at making the pesto or use the leaves in your next salad or soup.

Together we can reduce our waste in the kitchen, and help mother earth remain beautiful.

Most of all keep on cooking, good looking.

Love Char

x

Beet leaf pesto

The leaves that beetroots produce are beautiful colourful leaves and they make the most beautiful purple colour pesto. Great for pasta dishes or spreading on toast in the mornings.

  • 3-4 Leaves beetroot
  • 1/2 cup of olive oil
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 3 tbsps of almonds chopped
  • 1 tbsps of chilled water
  • Salt & Pepper

  1. Wash the beetroot leaves in cold water and shake dry, roughly chop the leaves.

  2. Add the chopped leaves, lemon juice, olive oil and garlic to a food processor and pulse for a couple of minutes until everything is blitz.

  3. Add in the 3 tbsps of water, the chopped almonds and the salt & pepper, blitz for further 2 minutes or until everything is incorporated together.

  4. Store your pesto in a sterilised jar, in the fridge for up to 5 days.

  5. Stir through pasta or rice, have on toast for breakfast, have it with whatever yah want.

  • Depending on how big you’re food processor is you may need to do two batches.
  • You can swap out the almonds for any nut that you have on hand or omit them all together.
  • If you’ve only got 2 or 3 beet leaves that you need to use just use the recipe as a guide – you can easily half the other ingredients if you are using less leaves.