VegBox Recipes

Swiss Chard Pesto

This recipe is a variation on a traditional Egyptian dish. It includes the addition of toasted pine nuts and parmesan, to give more breadth to the flavour. If you'd rather cook just the traditional dish, see the Variations section.

This is a useful way to sneakily hide chard from a fussy eater!

Note: this recipe can be useful for using up a glut of Swiss Chard. You can keep the pesto in the fridge for up to 3 days - or you can freeze it in small pots.

Ingredients

Use as a pasta sauce, or add at the last minute to give extra flavour to a stew.

1 knob butter
2 tbsp of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
Bunch of Swiss chard (about 300g) - any variety
Handful (about 50g) pine nuts
100g fresh parmesan or pecorino cheese, grated
Handful of fresh coriander leaves

Method

Wash the chard thoroughly and shake to dry.
Melt the butter in a saucepan with the olive oil. Peel and chop the garlic and saute for 2 minutes.
Chop the chard stems and add them to the pan. Stir and then cook, covered, for 5 minutes.
Roughly chop the chard leaves and add them to the pan. Cook for another 3 minutes.
Toast the pine nuts for a couple of minutes (either under a pre-heated grill or in a dry pan)

Turn off the heat under the chard. Add the coriander leaves, pine nuts and parmesan.
Puree the mixture until it looks like pesto.

Time From Cupboard-To-Table

About 15 minutes

Notes & Variations on Swiss Chard Pesto

You can omit the pine nuts and parmesan, if you don't like them.

This recipe is a really useful way of persuading kids to eat chard. If they like pesto, they'll like this.

The finished pesto will keep in an airtight jar in the fridge for up to 3 days.

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