wild garlic pesto

In this post, you will discover how to make a deliciously fresh and pungent vegan wild garlic pesto, using a mortar and pestle or a food processor. The pros and cons of each version are detailed below.

This vegan wild garlic pesto is something I look forward to eating every springtime. Try this recipe and you’ll understand why! I love its fresh, pungent, garlicky favour and you can use it in so many different ways. It complements a huge variety of dishes – from pasta and gnocchi to vegetables, potatoes, soups, salads, dips and cheeses. This vegan wild garlic pesto is my favourite way of using the leaves, but I also love to get creative in the kitchen and invent new recipes every spring!

About wild garlic (allium ursinum, ramsons, bear garlic)

The young leaves of the wild garlic plant (allium ursinum) start to appear in shady areas of deciduous woodland at the beginning of March, and by the end of the month, they are in their prime. This is the right time of the year to be out foraging for wild garlic!

If you’re not sure how to recognise wild garlic, also known as ramsons and bear garlic, where to find it or how to eat it, read my post Wild garlic (ramsons) – How to identify, forage and eat it. There you’ll find everything you need to know! Then, you can come back here and learn how to make this sublime vegan wild garlic pesto with the leaves you have harvested!

Why settle for limp, imported basil or, even worse, shop-bought jars of the stuff, when you can make an amazing, seasonal and unbelievably healthy pesto from leaves you foraged for free in the woods?

Have you heard about the health benefits of wild garlic? If you haven’t, I’ll let you in on a few of its little secrets!

Some health benefits of wild garlic

• Wild garlic lowers blood pressure and is beneficial to the entire cardiovascular system, including the coronary arteries. Consuming it can help reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
• It is a powerful detoxifier that cleanses the entire digestive system, as well as the kidneys, bladder and blood. Consequently, it has the additional spinoff of having beneficial effects on chronic skin conditions too.
• Wounds heal better if brushed with the fresh juice. Wild garlic boasts antibacterial, antibiotic, antiseptic and possibly antiviral properties, so it makes sense to eat as much as you can while you can.

I’m not your doctor or nutritionist, but what I can do is show you how to make lots of delicious recipes using wild garlic! So, let’s get started with this vegan wild garlic pesto!

How to make vegan wild garlic pesto

The traditional ingredients for pesto are basil, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil, Parmesan cheese and salt. 

• We’ll be replacing basil leaves with wild garlic leaves and omitting the garlic completely because wild garlic already has a delicious garlicky flavour.
• You’ll need top-quality oil for this recipe. I suggest using organic, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil for this recipe. Use the best salt you can get your hands on – I always use unrefined sea salt for all my recipes. If you only have table salt, consider reducing the quantity slightly.
• To make any kind of pesto vegan, we need to either omit or replace the Parmesan with a plant-based substitute. I don’t like store-bought vegan cheeses, so I make my own. This is my recipe for vegan parmesan cheese, which you can make at home in 5 minutes with four simple ingredients. It’s not cheese, of course, but it’s very, very similar to the real thing, in both appearance and taste. If you don’t want to use my vegan parmesan cheese recipe, you can do one of 3 things:
  • Leave it out completely
  • Substitute it with a vegan parmesan cheese of your choice
  • Increase the pine nuts to 65 g instead of 50 g, and add 4 g of nutritional yeast and a pinch of salt. That way, you’ll replace the vegan parmesan cheese with something that tastes very similar.

• Traditionally, pesto is made using pine nuts, but you can also use other nuts – pistachio nuts, almonds, cashews, etc, are all acceptable alternatives if you can’t use pine nuts. If using the food processor method, you can use raw or toasted nuts. Toasted pine nuts will yield a more rustic-looking pesto with more texture. If using a mortar and pestle, raw pine nuts make for a creamier pesto.

Vegan wild garlic pesto – ingredients

For the exact quantities, see the recipe card below.

• wild garlic leaves
• pine nuts
• unrefined sea salt
• vegan parmesan cheese
• extra virgin olive oil

You can adjust the proportions indicated in the recipe card below according to your own personal tastes. Traditional pesto has a lot of oil, and because I like to keep my recipes as authentic as possible, this vegan wild garlic pesto has a lot too. You can reduce that if you want to. Your pesto will be thicker, but you can thin it down with a couple of tablespoons of cooking water if you are using it for pasta or gnocchi.

I would recommend that you try making it to this recipe at least once and then start to experiment. That way, you will have a comparison to go by. Some people like more cheese, others more nuts. Pesto is one of those Italian regional recipes where everyone has their own homemade version, which deviates slightly from the “original” and that they consider the best.

Method – mortar and pestle vs food processor

Pesto is traditionally made using a mortar and pestle. However, it’s not always practical in our hectic daily lives. If you want to make it using the traditional method, at least once, you’ll find the instructions on how to make pesto with a mortar and pestle below.

For those of you who like taking shortcuts, you’ll get good results in a food processor or blender in a fraction of the time.

Results of my experiments

I made this vegan wild garlic pesto using both methods. The mortar-and-pestle version is silkier, emulsifies better and is more luxurious in texture (see the image at the top in the photo below). I definitely prefer the mortar-and-pestle version for pasta and gnocchi. The pesto glides over the pasta like a dream, coating it evenly all over. The flavour was different, too. The mortar-and-pestle version was more deeply infused with the flavours of all the ingredients. The downside is that it takes AGES to make. I also had to cheat right at the end and put the pesto into a blender for a few seconds to get rid of the long strands that I just couldn’t grind down with the mortar and pestle.

I like the rustic version too (bottom in the photo above), but less so on pasta. It doesn’t coat the pasta as well as the mortar-and-pestle version, where the texture is soft, silken, and tender. The food processor/blender pesto is made up of lots of uniform tiny bits that you can feel in the mouth and see on the pasta. It is, however, great for spreading on bread and for adding to vegan cream cheese. The toasted pine nuts give it a slightly crunchy texture – more rustic, in short. The big advantage of this method is that it’s super quick and easy to make.

Conclusion

I prefer the mortar-and-pestle wild garlic pesto. If you’re looking to impress and have the time, make it in a mortar and pestle. You can always give it a quick blitz in the food processor or blender if you can’t get rid of the filaments and long strands. This problem doesn’t exist with basil pesto – the leaves are much easier to grind down.

How to make wild garlic pesto using a mortar and pestle

Be warned, this method takes time! Wild garlic leaves are harder to grind down than basil leaves. Even the young and tender leaves at the beginning of the season. The filaments in the leaves resist the mortar and pestle and make the grinding very hard work.

Although this is absolutely not done when making traditional basil pesto, roughly chopping the leaves beforehand really helps. I would absolutely advise against using the mortar and pestle method with older leaves (foraged in mid to late April). In the mortar and pestle version, the oil is added last.

Instructions (with photos)

• Wash the wild garlic and pat it dry.
• If using the mortar and pestle method, don’t toast the pine nuts. Put them in the mortar and start crushing them with the pestle. Grind them down to a powder.
• Add a handful of wild garlic leaves. Start grinding them down with the pestle, using a gentle and prolonged rotary motion against the bottom and walls of the mortar.
• Keep adding the leaves, a handful at a time, and grind them down. Add a pinch of salt, or better still, a couple of grains of coarse sea salt, with each handful to act as an abrasive. Continue until all the leaves have been reduced to small particles.
• Now it’s time for the cheese. Add vegan parmesan cheese or nutritional yeast flakes to the mortar.
• Drizzle a little oil into the mortar and proceed to amalgamate and combine. Add more oil, a little at a time, working it into the pesto with the pestle to obtain the smooth, creamy and emulsified consistency of basil pesto. Add as much oil as you think fit.

How to make wild garlic pesto using a food processor

For the exact quantities and step-by-step instructions with photos, see the recipe card below.

• Wash the wild garlic and pat it dry.
• (Optional step) Toast the pinenuts in a dry pan for a few minutes on a medium heat, stirring often, until they are golden. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. If you toast the pine nuts, they’ll be crunchier, which makes a very nice, slightly more rustic pesto.
• Put half of the garlic leaves, pine nuts, salt and half of the oil in the blender beaker. Blend until the leaves are ground down enough to get the other half of the leaves in the blender.
• Add the other half of the leaves and the rest of the oil. Blend until the pesto is ground down to the consistency you like. You can blend it until it’s smooth, like most store-bought pesto, or leave a little texture like I did.
• Add the vegan parmesan cheese and pulse a couple of times to combine.

How to use your vegan wild garlic pesto

You can use your vegan wild garlic pesto in lots of ways. Here are a few ideas on what you can do with it:

• Smother your pasta in it, any kind you like, but pesto is particularly suited to spaghetti, fusilli and trofie
• Put it on gnocchi
• Spread it on fresh crusty bread with vegan cream cheese
• Serve it as a dip with vegetable sticks
• Spread it In sandwiches and wraps
• Use it on potatoes and vegetables

How to store vegan wild garlic pesto

Spoon your vegan wild garlic pesto into a jar and press it down with a spoon to eliminate any air pockets. Smooth the surface over with the back of the spoon. Pour a thin layer of oil over the pesto and put the lid on. Store it in the fridge, where it will keep for a couple of weeks. Each time you take some pesto out of the jar, remember to replace the oil. The layer of oil prevents the pesto from oxidising and inhibits bacterial growth.

I hope you liked this vegan wild garlic pesto recipe! If you did, it would be great if you could give it a star rating and leave a comment below! It helps other readers to find my content and posts and ultimately makes my blog more successful! Thanks so much for your support! Deborah xx

While you’re here on Vegan Hot Stuff, maybe you’d like to take a look at some other popular posts…

Would you like to receive my recipes as soon as I publish them? Subscribe below!