Broccoli Pesto
A universally-loved pasta sauce (that doubles as baby food)
This recipe is a year-round favorite of ours, thanks to the ready availability of its star ingredient. It has the same texture and (near) universal deliciousness of pesto but is in fact, just good old-fashioned broccoli. Make a big batch and reserve some of the pesto to feed the toothless members of your family, before tossing the rest with a bunch of parmesan and piping hot pasta to feed everyone else. (Chili flakes and anchovies are optional and delicious additions as well.)
This isn’t a recipe to tackle if you’re frantically trying to get dinner on the table right now. It’s a thing to prep ahead — while listening to a podcast, watching a show, talking on the phone, etc. — and keep for those evenings when you do need to make a quick and satisfying dinner for everyone in your house. The pesto keeps for a week in an air-tight container in the fridge (or up to three months in the freezer) and is a great thing to have on hand for all of the quick meals where pesto shines: last-minute pasta dinners, tossed with your grain or bean of choice, or spread on sandwich bread as a very tasty condiment. (Also, due to the green nature of broccoli, this may not be a win for the pickiest eaters but you never know… At the very least, you’ll be able to feel good about eating some of it yourself and freezing the rest for when that picky phase ends, right?)
Broccoli Pesto
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 40 minutes
Yields 4 cups (2 cups will dress 1 lb. of pasta generously)
2 pounds large-headed broccoli
8 cloves garlic (~1 head of garlic. If you’re cooking for a baby with a sensitive stomach, use half)
2 cups water
? cup mild to medium flavored olive oil (we use California Olive Ranch Medium and Mild everyday extra virgin olive oils for cooking. We also buy gallon jugs of Séka Hills Arbequina extra virgin olive oil which lasts forever and can be used for everything.)
1 lemon
Optional Ingredients
lemon
? teaspoon red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper
Chopped basil or parsley
3 salt or oil-packed anchovies
Shorter pasta shapes, like penne or rigatoni (pasta made with legume flours — think lentil or chickpea — tastes great with this too)
Parmesan cheese (Pecorino or Grana Padano work well, too)
How to make Broccoli Pesto
Cut off the bottoms of the broccoli stalks so you have the head of florets and 2” of the stem remaining. Coarsely chop the whole thing so the pieces are about ?” big — everything cooks down into a shmush so there’s no need to be precious with cutting the broccoli into uniform pieces. Mince the garlic.
Put the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan over low heat and add the garlic. (Heating the oil over higher heat and then adding the garlic is a guarantee for burnt garlic, which will make the whole pesto taste acrid and bitter.) Cook until it begins to smell good and turn lightly golden, about 4-5 minutes, and then add the broccoli and water. Stir to combine the ingredients and turn the heat up to medium. When the water boils, turn the heat down low to a simmer and cover your pan with a lid that fits tightly.
Over the course of the next ~40 minutes, check and stir the broccoli every 10 minutes or so to make sure the water hasn’t evaporated. (Fanny’s lid fit tightly, so she didn’t have to add any additional water. Greta’s lid, on the other hand, is, ahem, not so tight, so she had to add about a ? cup of water after 20 minutes and another ? cup ten minutes later.)
It’s done when the broccoli — both the florets and the bits of stem — turn into a chunky purée with some pressure from the back of a fork or potato masher. From here, turn off the flame, mash the contents of your pot and proceed to choose your own adventure.
For babies who aren’t doing salt yet. Once the broccoli is done and you’ve mashed it into a purée, remove a few scoops from the pot, add a squeeze of lemon and serve with a spoon, taking pains to shmush any of the larger chunks.
For babies who are doing a little salt and dairy. Once the broccoli is done and you’ve mashed it into a purée, remove a few scoops from the pot and season with a squeeze of lemon, salt and/or parmesan or pecorino. (For a cup of purée, we’d do a pinch of sea salt and 2 tablespoons of parmesan or 1 of pecorino since it is saltier.) Serve with a spoon or on very well-cooked pasta that has been cut into appropriately small shapes. (Check Solid Starts for more pasta-serving guidance.)
For kids and adults who aren’t into spice or anchovies. Follow the steps above but add more salt and cheese, to taste. Toss with pasta and serve, garnishing with more freshly grated cheese!
For picky eaters. Remove all traces of broccoli, garlic or even olive oil, honestly. Make pasta and toss with butter and cheese. (But, seriously folks, maybe your picky eater would be game for trying this with only a tiny bit of broccoli and a whole bunch of cheese?)
For those who eat everything. Rinse the anchovy filet if salt-packed, or pat off excess oil (approx. 1 fillet per cup of broccoli) and chop it coarsely together with 1-2 teaspoons of chili flakes. Fold into broccoli pesto and add salt and cheese before tossing with pasta. Serve promptly!
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Hi! We’re Fanny and Greta, dear friends with deep backgrounds in sustainable food—who also happened to have had babies within a month of each other in 2022. With toddlers now in our arms, we’re in the thick of figuring out how to introduce our kids to yet more of the world of food while also feeding the rest of our families and, you know, working, and occasionally bathing ourselves. As everyone who has come before us well knows, this is a genuine challenge, so we launched the Green Spoon as a way to capture our learnings in real time and create a place for parental solidarity.
