This fresh purslane pesto is made with purslane, a leafy plant that's technically a weed, and something every forager feels lucky to come by. It is great in so many recipes, and due to its growing popularity, you can find it at some farmers markets and specialty grocery stores.
You'll love the slightly tangy, even lemony flavor the purslane brings to this pesto. And it's ready in less than 15 minutes.
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🌟 Why You'll Love This Recipe
🧾 Ingredients In This Recipe
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
👩🍳 How to make this recipe
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
✅ Pro Tip
Freeze your pesto in ice cube trays. Pack each tray with pesto mixture, and freeze so you have little pesto cubes. Once frozen, remove the frozen cubes and store them in your freezer in an airtight container/bag. Defrost as needed.
📋 Purslane FAQs
Wild purslane may be safe to eat, but take great care if you're foraging it yourself, as it's likely to have pesticides or other chemicals on it out in the wild. To be safe, purchase from the farmers market or supermarket, or grow it at home.
Purslane is a great ingredient and safe to eat! It's very versatile and can be used much like you use spinach or watercress.
You could eat all of the purslane, but the tops including the leaves and thin stems taste the best. The medium and large stems don't taste as good, and since it's so abundantly grown and invasive, I don't recommend eating these.
Purslane is a great addition to salads, which is it's most common use. It can also be blended into different sauces like this pesto, use it as a garnish, or in any way you'd use watercress or spinach.
✅ Pro Tip
I got my purslane at a farmer's market and now I grow it in my garden. If you are growing in the garden, make sure to pinch off or pull it before flowering so it doesn’t spread too much, as it will take over the garden!
🌿 Related Recipes
If this purslane has made you hungry for a great salad, check out these scrumptious salad recipes that are sure to please and other purslane recipes.
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Purslane Pesto
Equipment
Ingredients
- 5 oz. purslane leaves stems removed, some small stems OK
- 3 cloves garlic Rough chopped
- ½ cup toasted pine nuts
- ½ cup olive oil
- ½ cup parmesan grated
- ¼ teaspoon pepper to taste
- salt to taste
Instructions
- To trim the purslane, know that the tops taste the best, so remove all the large and medium stems and keep the leaves, tops, and thin stems. Taste the different parts to see which ones you want to keep.
- Quarter or roughly chop the garlic (if you put it in the food processor whole they will not break down)
- Toast pine nuts over medium heat. Keep your eye on them to make sure they don't burn.
- Put the purslane, garlic, pine nuts, and ¼ teaspoon of pepper in the food processor.
- With the food processor on, slowly add the olive oil.
- Finely grate the parmesan into a medium sized bowl. The parmesan is salty so we don't add salt until the end.
- Add the contents of the food processor to the parmesan.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Sally
We have so much of this ingredient growing in our front yard and we were running out of uses for it, this recipe is a life saver! Thank you so much for all the inspiration, we loved how this pesto tasted.
Candice
I'm so glad you have new uses for it... this pesto is definitely one of my favorite purslane recipes. Happy to hear you loved it... thank you for taking the time to share!