Kale Pesto

This recipe takes two of my New Year's resolutions and puts them in one yummy, easy recipe! They are eat more veggies and explore the produce section of my grocery store. I've been hearing for awhile now how awesome kale is but hadn't taken the plunge in actually trying it. Doing a little research on kale I learned that it contains crazy amounts of vitamins and minerals, like Vitamin K, A, and C, and has very few calories. It can also help the body naturally detox. The more I learn about how great a certain food is for me the more willing and excited I am to find ways to fit it into my diet. 

This is why I was super excited to come across a recipe on 100 days of real food website that showed making pesto using half basil and half kale. My husband and I made it last week and had it on pasta for lunch; it was so good!! I went to make it again and decided to try using all kale and no basil and turns out it's just as good! The pine nuts, garlic, and parmesan cheese help give the kale that really great pesto flavor.

If you have a food processor this can literally be made in a matter of minutes. 

Start by washing the kale. I also cut off the stem and cut the leaves from the the thick stem that goes up into the leaf. You will need about 1 cup of kale. 



Now just toss that into a food processor with 1 clove of garlic, 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese, 3 Tablespoons pine nuts, and 1-2 Tablespoons of olive oil. I find it better to pulse the food processor to blend it all together instead of just turning it on and letting it run. It only takes about a minute to blend all of the ingredients together.



 Once it is all blended you will have a delicious pesto spread. This recipe tends to be more of a thick paste so if you are wanting to toss it will pasta I would maybe add a little more olive oil to it to help thin it out a little bit. 



Pesto is such an awesome condiment that can used in numerous ways. Simply just toss it with pasta, put it on a sandwich or wrap, use it as a pizza sauce, use it as a chicken salad dressing... the options are endless and oh so tasty :)