Perpetual suppers from perpetual spinach pesto sauce

FREE TO READ A sauce with a thousand uses, not least dealing with the first glut of the year. Plus, four ways to use it.

A sauce with a thousand uses

Chief amongst them: dealing with the spinach glut. And in the kitchen the options are limitless. Limp vegetables from the back of the fridge will find renewed vigour when diced and bathed in this sauce; panicked Tuesday night pasta will become a wholesome bowl of green; meals will be created in minutes from seemingly nothing.

Is your spinach perpetual?

Actually, it’s not spinach at all, really. Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla var. cicla, generally referred to as perpetual spinach is, in fact, a beet; a closer relation to chard, sugar beet and beetroot than regular spinach (which is spinacia oleracea, since you ask).

Unlike regular spinach, perpetual spinach does not bolt in the heat and it is, to quote the RHS, "bone hardy” so you can keep it cropping virtually all year. Mine came as plug plants from Roots Plants which were planted out in mid-May and are ready to pick now.

The seedlings were part of Roots’ Allotment in a Box which I’m growing in one raised bed this year so I can make How To videos for them like this one below, which shows you how to plant perpetual spinach:

rootsplantsuk

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So here I am with my first proper glut of the year and I have just the thing to use it up…

Perpetual spinach pesto sauce

Fresh, rather than frozen, spinach is essential here. But any sort – baby, adult, perpetual, fleeting are all fine. The sauce will keep in the fridge for a couple of days and freezes reasonably well in that the taste is not dimmed, but does lose some of its vibrancy, turning instead to Kermit green, which might put some (frog-lovers) off.

Makes 300ml

For the mother sauce:

• 150g spinach, perpetual or otherwise

• 50g full fat Greek Yogurt

• 15g basil

• 15g parsley

• 5g chives

• 1 small garlic clove, crushed

• 15g pine nuts

• 35g Parmesan, grated

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Simply stuff the raw (washed) spinach in a blender with all the other ingredients and whizz to a smooth sauce. For a truly velvety and smooth texture, transfer the sauce to something like a Nutribullet for a second whizz. The raw ingredients won’t all fit the jug of a Nutribullet, which is why you blitz in two-stages. If you have a Thermomix (and therefore also more money than you know what to do with) you will achieve the silky smooth texture first time, you lucky thing.

From here you can make:

Spinach pesto sauce pasta

Stir through hot pasta and finish with a few shavings of parmesan.

Salad dressing

Douse a lettuce or a medley of chopped vegetables in the spinach sauce.

Chilled spinach pesto soup

Dilute each 100ml of sauce with 60ml of water and add a pinch of salt. Serve chilled with an ice-cube and a drizzle of your best extra virgin olive oil.

Spinach pesto dip

Whizz 50g full-fat Greek yogurt, 50g best quality mayonnaise, 150g cottage cheese (I promise it works) with 50g of spinach pesto sauce. It will transform a carrot stick.

Perpetual Spinach Pesto Sauce - Kathy Slack

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A PDF recipe card to print out and splatter with green sauce

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I wonder what else you could use this sauce for?

Maybe I’ll try it added to a pan of fried chicken next. Let me know if you’ve any ideas:

PS: If you’ve enjoyed this free recipe and would like to get something similar every week, I’d love it if you might think about becoming a paid subscriber. For 77p a week, I aim to give you useful, inspiring and mostly-veggie recipe ideas, plus a monthly video, and I hope you feel that’s a fair exchange.

And since this is free, you’re most welcome to share this far and wide (in fact, I’d love it if you would).