A very delicate Trentino lettuce pesto on the table today. A simple recipe to avoid throwing away the outer leaves of a nice head of mountain lettuce.
I particularly love this lettuce because it’s so crispy and tender, and when summer comes, it is never missing from the table.
The Trentino lettuce is also known as Rossa di Trento or Ubriacona di Trento for its splendid red/green color.
With this type of lettuce, you can prepare very chic and colorful salads with summer vegetables, legumes, cereals. Naturally, you can prepare the same pesto with escarole, Belgian endive, curly endive, and any lettuce you prefer.
Let’s move on to the very simple pesto, and in the meantime, I’ll leave you with other ideas with seasonal lettuces:
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Preparation time: 5 Minutes
- Portions: 1 Piece
- Cooking methods: No cook
- Cuisine: Mediterranean
- Seasonality: Spring, Summer, and Fall
Ingredients for Lettuce Pesto
With a few outer leaves of the head, you get a small jar of pesto to use for pasta for 4 people.
- 5 leaves lettuce
- 1 oz oz almonds
- 1 pinch whole sea salt
- 3 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
- 3 leaves basil (optional)
Tools
- 1 Immersion Blender
Steps for Trentino Lettuce Pesto
The Trentino lettuce pesto is very quick, and then…dress a pasta or spread on crostini
Wash the lettuce leaves well, squeeze and tear into pieces.
Place in the immersion blender cup along with the almonds and basil leaves, and start blending. Add the oil gradually and the pinch of salt, blending until smooth. Adjust the amount of oil.
Pour into a jar, add a little extra oil to cover, and store in the fridge, or freeze.
Tips and Storage
As I mentioned, the pesto keeps for a couple of days in the refrigerator. When you have outer leaves of vegetables, instead of throwing them away, wash them well, and prepare pestos to freeze. You can do this with cauliflower, radish leaves, carrot tops, or asparagus stalks.
