Wild Garlic & Walnut Pesto

This Wild Garlic & Walnut Pesto is such a versatile sauce with pungent wild garlic notes coming through beautifully! Wonderfully seasonal, wholesome & delicious. Perfect with pasta, stirred through soups & stews or as a marinade.
(with Vegan option)

Continuing my love affair with wild garlic, I present you this fantastic Wild Garlic & Walnut Pesto recipe!

Its flavour is simply incredible and quite different from the store bought ones due to the use of wild garlic of course but also walnuts instead of more traditional pine nuts.

I absolutely love pesto and have a jar of homemade stuff in my fridge at all times with wild garlic variety being my number one during early spring and wild garlic season.

Why is homemade wild garlic pesto so great?

Pesto is super versatile and can be used in so many dishes either as a main player or flavour enhancer.

It is really quick and easy to make and doesn't require a lot of prep or washing up afterwards.

It keeps really well in the fridge but you can easily freeze it too.

It tastes better than shop bought varieties plus you know exactly what's in it!

How can I use wild garlic & walnut pesto?

There are so many ways of using this gorgeous pesto:

• You can stir it through pasta
• Add to risottos and other rice dishes
• Use it as a marinade as I have done in this Roast Chicken with Wild Garlic Pesto & Shallots
• Swirl it through soups (take a look at my Soup Recipes for inspiration). It will go beautifully drizzled over this Wild Garlic Soup.
• Use it as a dipping sauce or mix it with some mayo for use in sandwiches or burgers (like these delicious Easy Chickpeas & Carrot Falafel Burgers)
• Add it to stews and casseroles as flavour enhancer (as I've done in this Wild Garlic Pesto Chicken Casserole with Cheesy Dumplings)
• Spread it all over salmon fillet before baking & make into sauce as I have done in this Wild Garlic Pesto Baked Salmon with Gnocchi

How can I make it vegan?

Making wild garlic pesto vegan is really simple.

You can substitute parmesan with nutritional yeast which will provide that salty, cheesy umami flavour to compliment the garlic in pesto. It works really well in here but you can of course live it out.

What if I don't have wild garlic?

For those of you who cannot get your hands on wild garlic by foraging for it, are close to a really good farmers' market or use veg box scheme that provides it, you can simply substitute it with 2-3 regular garlic cloves and 80-100g of fresh basil or even parsley.

Your pesto will be different but definitely not less delicious. You could also experiment with different nuts (already mentioned pine nuts, hazelnuts or even almonds) and find the ones that suit you best.

Pro tips

1. I like using some leftover fresh parsley stalks whenever I've got them handy. They add extra goodness but also help to preserve the lovely green colour.

2. Add some lemon juice to your pesto for that extra zing and again to preserve the lovely green colour.

3. Feel free to use less wild garlic and make up the amount with other herbs (basil would be great here).

4. Once in jars pour a little extra virgin olive oil over your pesto to help preserve it that bit longer.

5. Feel free to adjust consistency of your pesto with a little bit of water.

Storing & freezing wild garlic pesto

Your pesto will keep in the fridge for about a week or a bit longer.

Alternatively, freeze it in small portions for up to 3 months.

I find that freezing it in ice cube tray works really well as it gives you perfect little portions for when you need them.

How to make wild garlic & walnut pesto - step-by-step

Ingredient quantities & detailed instructions to be found in recipe card at the bottom of the post.

Toast walnuts in a dry pan for couple of minutes until fragrant but not coloured. Make sure you give a pan a little shake every so often.

Pop toasted walnuts in a food processor and blend them until they have sand like consistency.

Add wild garlic and parsley stalks (if using) and blend until mixture resembles paste.

If you are making vegan version, you would add nutritional yeast at this stage as well.

With food processor running, very slowly pour in the olive oil (trickle it in) which will help to emulsify and loosen up the garlic & walnut paste.

Add grated cheese (if using), salt & pepper and give your mixture one last quick blitz. At this stage you can also adjust consistency to your liking by adding a little bit of water.

Transfer to jars & cover with extra drizzle of olive oil to help and preserve your pesto in the fridge. 

Have you tried my Wild Garlic & Walnut Pesto?

Please leave a comment to let me know what you thought, share your tips, tricks etc. If you have any questions, feel free to ask away too and I'll try and respond as soon as I can.

If you’ve made this recipe please rate it too! Thank you in advance!

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Vegan Cheese Scones (with Wild Garlic)

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Update Notes: This post was originally published on 2 May 2018 and updated in March 2019 with some more useful info and in March 2021 to add vegan option.

Linkies:

Cook Blog Share Easy Peasy Foodie, Cook Once Eat Twice, Brilliant Blog Posts, Got to be gluten free with Gluten Free Alchemist