Carrot top greens: cooking with unused carrot parts

Did you know you can use carrot top and greens rather than chucking them into your waste bin. Follow along to find ways creative ways to use them:

1. Carrot top Pesto - 10 mins

Learn how to make carrot top pesto that can be used as a dip, with pasta, roast potatoes, quinoa, chicken or as filling for small bell peppers.

Ingredients

1. 1 cup carrot greens from the top of the carrot, remove the tough stems.
2. 2 tbsp Olive oil
3. Parmesan
4. ½ teaspoon sea salt
5. 1 large clove of Garlic, roughly chopped
6. Cashewnuts, Walnuts or Pine nuts or alternatively sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds. If using nuts, roast them before blending for a richer flavour.
7. 1 cup kale (optional)
8. 1½ cup basil leaves (optional)
9. Baby spinach
10. 2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

Making

1. Put all the ingredients into a blender
2. Adjust oil if required.
3. Put the ingredients in a blender and start blending. Slowly add olive oil until the paste reaches the required consistency
4. Store in an airtight container inside a fridge for up to 5 days. To make pesto last longer, keep the pesto covered in oil while storing in the fridge.

Checkout the videon on simple way to make carrot top pesto

2. Carrot top soup - 40 mins

   Ingredients

   1. 4 cups carrot greens, roughly chopped
   2. 2 tablespoon olive oil
   3. 3 garlic cloves
   4. 2 chopped onions.
   5. 400gm potatoes. Alternatively use zucchini
   6. 1 litre vegetable broth
   7. Salt and pepper to taste

   Cooking

   1. In a soup pot, heat the olive oil on medium heat.
   2. Add the chopped onions, salt and garlic and saute for 7 minutes until they have begun to soften.
   3. Add the potatoes or zucchini. Cook for 5 minutes, occasionally stirring the mix.
   4. Add the rest of the ingredients.
   5. Bring the mixture to boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer.
   6. Let the soup simmer for 25 minutes until the carrot greens are tender or simmer longer if you add large potato chunks (cook until you can insert a knife in).
   7. Use an immersion blender or transfer the mix into a large blender. Blend until the soup becomes a thick velvety consistency
   8. When serving, drizzle some olive oil, truffle oil or crème fraîche. Alternatively, whip yoghurt, lemon juice and olive oil and drizzle that over the top.
   9. Serve with some homemade croutons. Learn how to make homemade croutons.

3. Regrow carrot green

   You can regrow carrot greens from pieces of carrot tops. However, you can’t regrow full carrots

   1. Cut around 1 cm from the carrot top and also leave around 1nch of the stem attached.
   2. Put them cut-side down in a wide flat bottomed bowl or a shallow tray.
   3. Add a tiny bit of water on the plate. Do not cover the carrot tops fully with water.
   4. Leave the plate on a window sill that gets direct sunlight.
   5. New leaves should appear over the next few days
   6. Change the water every 3 days.
   7. Let the greens grow tall and cut them for your homemade recipes. Make sure to leave some of the stems attached to the top so that you get new shoots growing again for an endless supply of carrot greens.