Roasted Carrots & Carrot Top Pesto

4/13/2020

Roasted Carrots & Carrot Top Pesto

One of the positive things that has come out of being quarantined is that it's challenged me to get more creative in the kitchen. Rather than going to the grocery store and getting all of my usual produce items, I've been ordering weekly boxes of produce from a local farm, and it's always fun to open it up and see items that I haven't cooked with before. For example, these carrots. Yes, I've cooked with carrots many times, but I've never cooked with carrot tops! I mean, check out these beautiful greens... it just seems like a shame to let them go to waste! After a quick search for "how to use carrot tops" on Google, I was inspired to make pesto. I didn't have Parmesan or nutritional yeast (a lot of people use this as a cheese replacement to make it dairy-free), but guess what, we didn't even need that to make this pesto super DELICIOUS. So turns out that this pesto is totally vegan, but if you have Parmesan on hand, feel free to add it. I'm totally hooked on this recipe and have been putting it on everything from shrimp to salmon to chicken to potatoes to roasted veggies. You'll love it!

Since the carrot tops conveniently come attached to the carrots (obviously!), it made sense to roast up the carrots until tender and then toss them in the pesto. The sweetness of the roasted carrots is the perfect balance with the herby, nutty pesto, and there's something really satisfying about using the entire vegetable as one side dish. When Mitch wolfed it down, he said "I feel like this is something we'd order at a super trendy restaurant with those uncomfortable chairs". So true, ha! You should definitely try this pesto on top of roasted salmon and grilled chicken, too - it completely makes the meal! Keep the salmon or chicken simple (I just season with salt and pepper), or any other protein you'd like (steak, shrimp, cod, or halibut would also be amazing!) and slather the pesto on top! Tossing it into pasta would also be a no-brainer!

Ingredients
For the roasted carrots:
1 bunch of carrots, scrubbed or peeled, and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 tbsp avocado oil (or use avocado oil spray)
Salt & pepper

For the pesto:
1/2 cup carrot top greens
1/4 cup fresh basil
1 clove garlic
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup pistachios (pine nuts or walnuts would work, too!)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

Yields 1/2 cup of pesto. 

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Chop the carrots into 2-inch pieces. If any of them are extra thick, cut them in half lengthwise so all pieces are roughly the same size (see the photos - some are halved and others whole). Spread the chopped carrots evenly on the baking sheet and toss or spray with avocado oil and season with salt and pepper. 
3. Roast for 25-30 minutes or until carrots are tender and charred on the edges. Make sure to toss them halfway through.
4. While the carrots roast, make the pesto. Place all pesto ingredients in a food processor (I use this little one!) and process until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
5. Toss roasted carrots in 1/4 cup of the pesto and save the rest of the pesto for another use! Enjoy!​