Year round pesto awaits in this 15 minute, freezer friendly Vegan Garlic Scape Pesto recipe. Find garlic scapes at local co-ops, CSAs or farmer’s markets in late spring and early summer. Their season is short, so get them while you can! Enjoy this punchy pesto on on your favorite pasta, pizza, sandwich or drizzle it over soup. For a cheesy version see my original Garlic Scape Pesto recipe.
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Discovering Garlic Scapes
The first year I’d ever purchased a Community Supported Agriculture Share (CSA), these twirly green lanky stems showed up in my box. I had never seen scapes before, and what in the world was I going to do with them?
To my delight and discovery, and after talking with a few farmers about scapes, I started making pesto with them. After-all, one must preserve summer’s bounty somehow, and this scape pesto was an easy decision.
This Recipe Is
- a condiment that’s loud and bold in flavor
- quick to whip up in a food processor
- versatile and delicious
If you make homemade condiments and love the bold flavor of garlic, you’ll enjoy this fun and delicious dairy free scape pesto.
What is a Garlic Scape?
A garlic scape is the flower stalk of a hardneck garlic plant. It tastes like garlic, only spicier and bolder. The stem (or scape) of the growing garlic is removed so that the remaining energy goes towards the development of the bulb, or head of garlic, which is good because this helps the plant develop plump, full flavored garlic cloves. So until the garlic harvest later in the season, we feast on scapes!
Freeze it For Later
I typically make multiple jars of pesto, in small batches, and freeze it in small Mason jars to enjoy throughout the many months scapes are no longer in season.
For smaller portions, I use an ice cube tray to store about 3 tablespoons per cube. Once frozen, they go straight into a zip top bag and back into the freezer. This is especially convenient when I just need a bit to drizzle over soup, or to use in pesto mayo. It thaws quick too.
How to Enjoy Your Vegan Garlic Scape Pesto
This pesto can be used like any other pesto but my personal favorites include slathering it on this Sourdough Discard Pizza, and Gluten Free Pizza as a pizza sauce, schmeared on crostini, drizzled on soup or swirled into Pesto Mayo to use on a tasty sammie or stir it into this Creamy Farro with Pesto, Asparagus and Peas.
This recipe is delicious as a condiment with many recipes, I find myself reaching for it often when I want a pop of flavor and color.
Do you know where to find your most local farm or farmer’s market? If not, check out Local Harvest. It’s an excellent resource to find local food!
Traci’s Tips
- How to Choose Garlic Scapes: Look for garlic scapes at farmer’s markets, farm stand or local Co-Ops. They should be bright green with a firm stem and no yellowing parts. Make sure they’re fresh by looking for the curl towards the end of the bulbil (towards the top of the scape). If the scape is straight, it’s past its prime which can produce a tough texture and bitter taste.
- The price of pine nuts have gone through the roof! I’ve been subbing toasted walnuts or almonds for the pine nuts in all my pesto recipes with delicious results.
15 Minute Vegan Garlic Scape Pesto
Ingredients
- 10 (154 grams) Garlic Scapes
- 1/3 cup (30 grams) Walnuts
- 2 tablespoons (12 grams) Nutritional Yeast
- 1/2 Lemon, juiced
- 1/4 teaspoon Sea Salt
- 1/8 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
- 1/3 cup (73 grams) Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 73g
Instructions
- Trim the garlic scapes by cutting just below the bulb. Discard the bulb/tip and cut the scapes in about 1″ pieces.
- In a food processor fitted with the S blade, add the scapes, walnuts, yeast, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Process by pulsing until the mixture begins to break down. Scrape the bowl down.
- With the processor running, slowly add all the olive oil. Continue to process until all the ingredients are incorporated and broken down, about 30-45 seconds, stopping to scrape down the bowl as needed.
- Store in a covered container in the fridge and enjoy within a week. Also, you can freeze the pesto in a jar or in an ice-cube tray. Once frozen, in the ice-cube tray, remove and place in a ziplock bag in the freezer.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate. If this information is important to you, please have it verified independently.
Made it? Leave a comment below!
The most helpful comment may include recipe rating, feedback, any modifications or helping other commentors.
Traci, where do you find the time to make all these recipes!! You are amazing! Question: what could you sub the nuts for if allergies are an issue?
Hi Joy! Thank you for your note and kind words… one recipe at a time! :D Can you do seeds? If so, lightly toasted sunflower seeds would be nice. How does that sound?
this recipe is PERFECT.
Hooray! Thank you for coming back and leaving a note, Emily. SO happy to hear!
When searching this recipe I saw that there should be an option with no oil in the notes but I don’t see that when I come to the site. Do you have an oil free, vegan version of this recipe?
Hi Jennifer! I do not have an oil free, vegan version of this recipe.
I am going to try the recipe but I can not eat lemon or nutritional yeast. I was going to substitute a drop of lemongrass essential oil. What would you suggest for the nutritional yeast?
Hi Carol! Are you dairy free? If not, you can try my other recipe for Garlic Scape Pesto. Otherwise, simply leave the nutritional yeast out.
I made this – super delicious! I used toasted pine nuts instead of walnuts because that’s what I had and man was it good. Thank you!
Hi Elizabeth! Thank you for your note! Aren’t garlic scapes amazing? I absolutely love them in pesto. So happy to hear you’re enjoying the recipe too!
This was hands down the best thing I’ve made since having to cut dairy out of my diet. I tossed about a half cup of the pesto with hot fettucine with broccoli, shrimp, lemon zest and lemon juice, off the heat. The heat from the fettucine tamed the “spicy” garlic bite. It was totally delicious and I’m so happy to have found this recipe!! Thank you!!
Hi Natalie! Thank you for coming back and leaving a note! SO happy to hear you’re enjoying those scrumptious scapes. Your recipe sounds fabulous too!
Would it work with cashews instead of walnuts?
Hi Valerie! I’ve not tried it with cashews but you could give it a go! I’m sure it will be delicious. Please let us know how it turns out for you if you give it a go!
I ended up using almonds and it worked great!! Also – I froze most of it but have had some in the fridge for about two and a half weeks. Do you think that’s still good? I know you said a week but I’m not sure what would go bad in it?
Hi Valerie! Thank you for coming back and leaving a note! So happy you enjoyed the pesto and with almonds (delicious!). I just tend to freeze things quickly if I don’t use them up, so I’ve not tested the pesto beyond a week in the fridge. You could nose it a and see what you think. I hope this helps!
I liked this recipe overall, but it was a little too garlicky for me. I added nutritional yeast, more oil, salt and basil to balance the flavors a little.
Thank you for your note, Shelby! No doubt, garlic scapes are garlicky! So glad you were able to adjust it to your taste.
Made this a few days ago and brought it along to our cabin for easy dinners. So far have enjoyed it on pasta and loved it on home made pizza dough with a little fresh basil, tomatoes and sweet pepper for toppings! Thanks so much for the great recipe! PS made it with walnuts because you’re right ~pine nuts are crazy expensive right now and tastes just as delicious with walnuts!
Hooray Heather! So happy you’re enjoying the garlic scapes. Thank you for your note and recipe suggestion! Your homemade pizza sounds absolutely fabulous! And pass the walnuts, right!?
We harvested about 150 garlic scapes today and were once again on the prowl for a way to use them. My hubby found your website and made this recipe for us tonight. We were both thrilled with the results! It was fast, delicious and easy. We didn’t have walnuts in the house so substituted pecans which certainly didn’t seem to harm this recipe. I will be making your “Creamy Farro with Pesto Asparagus and Peas” tomorrow. Thank you so much.
Hooray Joan! I’m so glad you’re finding what to do with all those garlic scapes! I’d love to take some off your hands! Fast, delicious and easy.. yup! Pecans sound incredible! I’m going to try it – thank you for that! I hope you enjoy the Farro … I love that one too! :D
Was I supposed to cook the scapes first? I made this tonight and it was so spicy like straight raw garlic that we couldn’t even eat it. We love garlic and eat a TON of it but this was inedible for us so I’m thinking I should have cooked them first?
I put a tsp on my pasta and added some margarine and vegan cheese to still try to use it with dinner but I’m trying to sort how to salvage it.
Thanks for any feedback.
Hi Nichole! I’m so sorry to hear the recipe didn’t taste good. This recipe is for raw garlic scapes, so there’s no cooking involved. Scapes are spicier than garlic for sure and a little can go a long way depending on taste. If you’d like to try making basil pesto and mixing it into the garlic scape pesto, that may help quiet the spicy.
Can I make this using frozen scapes? I froze them right after buying, and am hoping to make this recipe! Thanks!
Hi Natasha… I don’t see why not.. I’d thaw them first though. I hope you enjoy the recipe!
In response to Natasha’s question. We used up all of our fresh scapes and have had to move on to those we froze last summer (this has been a very popular recipe in our house)! My husband made a single recipe tonight to see how the frozen would compare to the fresh. The garlic flavor is diminished somewhat using frozen but otherwise we found very little difference. To compensate we added a small slice from a fresh garlic clove. We have served this pesto very frequently in the past 5 weeks and have had very positive responses along with requests for the recipe.
Thank you for sharing your notes on freezing and using a fresh garlic clove to amp up the garlicky flavors from frozen scapes! So happy to hear you’re enjoying the recipe! :D