Radish Top Pesto

I fell in love with radishes this summer.  I add radishes to salads, coleslaws, eat them with hummus, and roast them with lime and chili powder.  I normally buy bagged radishes, but the store only had radishes with the green stems and leaves attached.  I didn’t want to waste all of those greens so I researched recipes using radish greens.  I found a recipe for a radish pesto I decided to try.  I added fresh basil leaves to my pesto because I love the taste of basil and it helped balance out the peppery flavor of the radish leaves. 

Ingredients:

3 cups radish tops (washed with excess stems removed)

1 cup fresh basil leaves

3 cloves garlic

4 tablespoons lemon juice; zest of 1 lemon

¼ cup pine nuts

½ cup fresh grated Italian cheeses (Parmesan)

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons honey

Directions:

1. Add radish tops and basil to food processor.  Pulse to chop.  Scrape down the sides as needed.
2. Add lemon juice, garlic, and pine nuts.   Pulse to mix.
3. Add cheese and honey.  Pulse to mix.
4. Add ¼ cup olive oil.  Pulse to mix.  Add remaining olive oil if mixture is too thick.
5. I used this over grilled chicken, as a vegetable dip, and mixed with plain nonfat Greek yogurt as a salad dressing.