• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
West Coast Kitchen Garden
  • Recipes
    • Appetizers and Snacks
      • Albacore Tuna Ceviche With A Side Of Guacamole
      • Arugula Crostini With Boerenkaas Cheese
      • Asparagus and Red Pepper Prosciutto Bundles
      • Basil Aioli For Garden Veggies
      • Caramelized Onion and Blue Cheese Dip
      • Cinco De Mayo Celebration Recipes
      • Crab Cakes (The best classic cakes!)
      • Dungeness Crab Cakes with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce (Low Carb and Gluten Free)
      • Crispy Fried Oysters With Lemon Caper Aioli
      • Eggplant-Roasted Eggplant Dip
      • Grilled Peel And Eat Spot Prawns With Garlic Herb Butter
      • Guacamole (Fast, Vegan, 5 Ingredients)
      • Healthy Hummus
      • Miso Baked Oysters-A Quick And Easy West Coast Appetizer
      • Olives-Warm Marinated Olives
      • Pica De Gallo (Fresh Salsa)
      • Savory Spring Rhubarb Salsa
      • Shrimp Cocktail Mexican Style! (Coctel De Camarones) With Wild West Coast Shrimp
      • Baba Ganoush Without Tahini (Roasted Eggplant Dip)
      • Use-It-Up Fruit Salsa
      • Zucchini Cheddar Fritters
      • Canada Day!!! 8 Fun Recipes To Celebrate Our Country
    • Salads and Side Dishes
      • Apple Fennel Salad with Grainy Mustard Dressing
      • Carrot Apple Ginger Salad Dressing
      • Celery Apple Salad
      • Fresh Fig Fennel Salad
      • Garden Salad With Orange Vinaigrette
      • Ketchup-Make Your Own (Easy and Healthy) Homemade Ketchup From Your Garden!
      • Microgreen Salad on Carrot Risotto
      • Mushrooms-Cauliflower Mushroom Gratin
      • Radicchio and Orange Salad
      • Radicchio Grilled with Cambazola
      • Raspberry Salad Dressing
      • Strawberry Vinaigrette with Arugula, Hazelnuts and Goat Cheese
      • Thai Flank Steak Salad
      • Zucchini Salad with Feta and Hazelnuts
      • Zucchini Tomato Salad
    • Main
      • Chicken Baked In Thai Peanut Sauce
      • Chicken with Lemon Herb Marinade
      • Chirashi Sushi Bowl (aka Superfood Bowl)
      • Cinco De Mayo Recipes
      • Crab Cake Recipe-Pure Crab!
      • Fish Tacos With BC Cod
      • Foraged Food! How to find and cook wild foods.
      • Halibut Cheeks
      • Oysters-Crispy Fried With Lemon Caper Aioli
      • (Spot) Prawns In Tomato Fennel Broth And How to Grill Them Simply
      • Salmon-How To Perfectly Bake
      • Salmon-Roasted Miso Glazed Salmon
      • Scallops Vongole Style
      • Seafood Alfredo
      • Thai Flank Steak Salad
      • Tuna Nicoise Salad with Asparagus and Arugula
    • Vegetarian Main
      • Asparagus Lemon Risotto
      • Basic Pizza Dough and Easy Zucchini Pizza
      • Fiddleheads with Garlic, Ginger and Sesame
      • Fiddlehead Tart-A Wild and Tasty Spring Vegetable
      • Meatless Monday Recipes- 35 Dinners That Aren’t Salad!
      • Mushroom Gratin-Cauliflower and other Wild Mushrooms
      • Mushrooms-Wild Chanterelle Mushroom Croustade
      • Mushroom-Wild Mushroom and Lentil Stew
      • Pesto-Mint Basil Pistachio Pesto (Vegan, GF)
      • Pesto- Sorrel Pesto, Bright, Citrusy, Delicious And Easy
      • Risotto-Carrot with Microgreen Salad Topping
      • Risotto-Best Ever Wild Mushroom Risotto
      • Vegan Italian White Bean Stew
    • Soup
      • Beet And Beef Borscht Inspired By Grandma
      • Broccoli Cheese Soup (GF, Healthy, Easy)
      • (Roasted) Cauliflower Soup With Hazelnuts
      • Easiest Creamy Tomato Soup
      • Laksa-Easy Authentic Homemade Snapper Laksa
      • Mushroom Soup With Wild Mushrooms
      • Oyster Stew-West Coast Oysters, East Coast Stew!
      • Potage Parmentier (Potato Leek Soup)
      • Roasted Sweet Pepper Soup
    • Herbs and Recipes to use them
      • Herbes De Provence
      • Lavender-20 Recipes To Use and Preserve Lavender
      • Microgreens How To Grow Them Yourself And How To Use Them
      • Mint Basil Pesto with Pistachios (Vegan, GF and Dairy Free)
      • Mint-25+ Best Fresh Mint Recipes
      • Parsley-20 Best Parsley Recipes
    • Drink, Sauce, Syrup, Etc
      • 3 Ways To Preserve (And Use) Your Lavender
      • Blackberry Barbecue Sauce
      • Cinco De Mayo
      • Classic Canadian Caesar Cocktail
      • Fresh Squeezed Lime Margarita
      • Kate’s Fresh Peppermint Tea
      • Lavender French 75
      • Lavender Simple Syrup
    • Baked, Preserved and Condiments
      • 3 Ways To Preserve (And Use) Your Lavender
      • Apple Brown Sugar Cake With Cardamom
      • Apple Oatmeal Cake-Best Ever Easy Cake Recipe
      • Blackberry Yogurt Popsicles
      • Blackberry Apple Jam-Makes 1 jar, no canning required!
      • (One Bowl!) Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins
      • Chocolate Almond Brownies
      • Chocolate Hazelnut Tart
      • Christmas Collection-Easy Festive Drinks To Keep Your Holiday Merry And Bright
      • French Apple Beignets- And Easy Apple Fritter
      • Ketchup-Make Your Own Easy and Healthy Sauce From Your Garden!
      • Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins (Vega, Dairy-free, Egg-free)
      • No Knead Bread-A Fast And Easy Rosemary Boule
      • Plum Clafoutis Recipe- Classic French Dessert That’s Fast and Easy
      • Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins with oatmeal and Greek yogurt
      • The Raspberriest Raspberry Sauce with Quick Chocolate Cake for 8
      • Rhubarb Snack Cake with Yogurt and Olive Oil
      • Ultimate Strawberry Rhubarb Shortcake
      • Zucchini Muffins
      • Easy Healthy Recipes From The West Coast
  • Shop
  • About
    • About
    • Portfolio
    • Contact and Media

Sorrel Pesto, Bright, Citrusy, Delicious And Easy

November 14, 2018 by SabCurrie 28 Comments

Why Pesto

There are many ways to use this lovely herb and if you google recipes you’ll find many are from northern Europe where it is a very common ingredient.  Often it is cooked but I personally prefer it raw so that it retains it’s bright citrus flavor. Sorrel Pesto is the perfect way to enjoy it’s fresh lemon like quality. (We love pesto, you might also like to try my Basil Mint Vegan Pesto recipe.)

Other sorrel recipes

Popular recipes include sorrel sauce with salmon and sorrel soup, both of which are French recipes. Used in mixed salads, it adds a very bright fresh note and in pesto it is lighter and milder than basil.  Once cooked it loses much of it’s bright flavor and can sometimes be a little on the bitter side.

Growing your own sorrel

One of the big perks of living on Canada’s West Coast is our mild winters. We are well into November now and my spring sorrel is staging a comeback after the heat and dryness of the summer had decimated it.  I thought I better use it now though, before we start getting heavy frost and finally got around to making sorrel pesto which had been on my mind last spring.

Easy Sorrel Pesto From West Coast Kitchen Garden
Easy Sorrel Pesto From West Coast Kitchen Garden

Sorrel is fresh and very lemony in flavour, in fact my daughter calls it lemon leaf and loves to pick leaves to snack on while out in the garden. 

It is an extremely easy and low maintenance herb to grow, some might call it a weed, but it is a lovely addition to a kitchen garden. It is hearty, one of the first plants to start growing in the spring and one of the last to keep producing in the fall. Sorrel is a fantastic vitamin and fiber powerhouse too. 

Sorrel Growing On Vancouver Island
Sorrel Growing On Vancouver Island

Plant your sorrel in a spot it can stay and it will come back for you each year. This plant doesn’t take up too much space, approximately one square foot. I used a lot of it this year in salads and sauces and so I decided to let mine go to seed this summer in hopes of having a few more plants next spring. (If you love growing herbs, check out my collection of Mint Recipes and Parsley Recipes.)

My Ingredients

Parmesan Hazelnuts And Sorrel For Pesto
Parmesan Hazelnuts And Sorrel For Pesto

For my sorrel pesto, I decided to use local hazelnuts as the base.  They are so delicious and fresh here right now. Hazelnuts are a relatively soft nut that can be crushed or ground into a nice paste consistency but you could certainly use another soft mild nut like cashews or pine nuts.

Local Vancouver Island Hazelnuts
Local Vancouver Island Hazelnuts

To highlight the lemon flavour, I added lemon zest and then added a cup of grated Parmesan cheese to help bind it all together and give that melty, creamy consistency when spooned over hot pasta.

West Coast Sorrel is a classic spring ingredient
West Coast Sorrel Pesto

My family gave the thumbs up that this is a keeper and one big advantage over classic pesto with pine nuts and basil is that this is really economical to make.  I hope you get a chance to try this and if you don’t already have sorrel growing in your garden, I highly recommend planting it next spring. (Click here for my favourite, West Coast Seeds)

Fettuccine With Sorrel Pesto
Fettuccine With Sorrel Pesto
Easy Vegetarian Sorrel Pesto With Hazelnuts And Parmesan Cheese

Sorrel And Hazelnut Pesto

Delicious and so easy, this is a bright lemony version of the classic made with sorrel from the garden or farmer’s market and local hazelnuts. Quick to whip up in your food processor. 
4 from 1 vote
Print Pin Rate
Course: Condiment, Dinner, Main, Sauce
Cuisine: canadian, Italian, PNW, West Coast
Keyword: Hazelnuts, Pasta Sauce, Pesto, Sorrel
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Author: Sabrina Currie

Ingredients

  • 1/2 c Hazelnuts
  • 1 tsp Kosher Salt
  • 1 clove Garlic
  • 2 c Sorrel Leaves
  • 1/2 c Olive Oil
  • 1 tsp Lemon Zest
  • 1 c Parmesan, Grated 100 grams/3 oz

Instructions

  • In food processor (or with mortar and pestle if you feel like it and have the extra time) process the hazelnuts and salt until the nuts are very finely ground.  Add the garlic and process again until it is uniform with the nuts. 
    Parmesan Hazelnuts And Sorrel For Pesto
  • Add the sorrel, about 1/2 cup at a time, when it gets too thick to process, start adding the oil slowly, alternating with the remaining sorrel until all incorporated.  
    Making Sorrel Pesto With A Mortar And Pestle
  • Stir in the lemon zest and grated parmesan and season to taste with salt.
    Lemon Zest In Sorrel Pesto
  • Serve with hot pasta like fettuccine or pappardelle or as a condiment with some grilled or poached fish or chicken.
    Grated Parmesan Cheese Makes Pesto Deliciously Creamy
  • Another delicious option (or use your leftovers) is as a spread on bruschetta and topped with sliced cherry tomatoes. 
    West Coast Sorrel Pesto
Easy Vegetarian Sorrel And Hazelnut Pesto
Easy Vegetarian Sorrel And Hazelnut Pesto
Pesto With Hazelnuts And Parmesan Pin
Sorrel Pesto With Hazelnuts And Parmesan

Share this:

  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Foraging, Recipe, Vancouver Island, Vegetable Gardening Tagged With: Canada, coastal cooking, easy recipe, edible garden, gardening, herb, kitchen garden, pesto, pnw, potager, recipe, sorrel, sorrel pesto, Vancouver Island, vegetarian

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Laura

    May 12, 2020 at 9:05 am

    5 stars
    This dish with sorrel pesto looks delicious. I have sorrel in my garden too and enjoy the bright lemony taste. What a great idea to use hazelnuts in the pesto. Thanks for adding all the step by step photos.

    Reply
    • SabCurrie

      May 12, 2020 at 11:52 am

      Thank you Laura! I love the flavour of sorrel raw as opposed to cooked so it retains its brightness. Enjoy 🙂

      Reply
  2. Vanessa

    May 12, 2020 at 3:42 pm

    5 stars
    This pesto looks delicious! Now I have something else to make with sorrel other than just throwing into salads.

    Reply
    • SabCurrie

      May 13, 2020 at 7:46 am

      Yes, I’m sure you’ll love it with all the bright citrusy flavour of the sorrel! Thanks for reading 🙂

      Reply
  3. Julia

    May 13, 2020 at 10:26 pm

    5 stars
    What a beautiful and fresh looking dish. I bet the flavour is absolutely fantastic. And that colour, wow!

    Reply
    • SabCurrie

      May 14, 2020 at 7:25 am

      Fresh sorrel has not only a bright color but a bright fresh flavour when used raw. I hope you give it a shot and thanks for reading along!

      Reply
  4. Nicoletta De Angelis Nardelli

    May 14, 2020 at 8:48 am

    5 stars
    I wasn’t familiar with sorrel until a friend who is also a food blogger gave us some from her garden. I loved adding it to our salad! It has such a bright citrusy flavor. I’m sure we would love this pesto!

    Reply
    • SabCurrie

      May 14, 2020 at 11:32 am

      It’s such a lovely green us bet it?! If you like the flavour, you’ll love the pesto! Thanks for chiming in 🙂

      Reply
  5. Bernice Hill

    May 14, 2020 at 9:16 pm

    5 stars
    This is a great post. I was actually wondering if I should add sorrel to my herb garden this year but I wasn’t sure if it spreads or not. If I can find some, it’s going in!

    Reply
    • SabCurrie

      May 16, 2020 at 11:54 am

      Sorrel is wonderful in the garden and will not take over. I plant mine by my rhubarb as it arrived around the same time each year. It will go to seed eventually but it is easy to control by picking the seed head off (like you would for parsley or rhubarb), it won’t spread through the root system. The lovely thing with this is once you plant it once, it’ll come back on it’s own.

      Reply
  6. Colleen

    May 17, 2020 at 2:45 pm

    5 stars
    I love using the herb garden for more than just seasonings, and this recipe looks wonderful. I especially love that you used hazelnuts. I’ve never used them in pesto before and since they are local for us I can’t wait to try it!

    Reply
    • SabCurrie

      May 17, 2020 at 9:37 pm

      Hazelnuts are such a delicious and versatile nut, really great in any pesto. Thanks for reading along Colleen!

      Reply
  7. Cynthia Priest

    May 17, 2020 at 8:55 pm

    5 stars
    Great tips on sorrel! I ought to find some seeds for next spring. Sorrel pesto sounds lovely!

    Reply
    • SabCurrie

      May 17, 2020 at 9:35 pm

      Yes! Do worth it to have sorrel. A nice early spring green 🙂

      Reply
  8. Kristen

    May 18, 2020 at 6:33 am

    5 stars
    Oooooh I absolutely love sorel and have planted some in my garden, so this recipe is a must! Thank you for sharing.

    Reply
    • SabCurrie

      May 18, 2020 at 8:39 am

      You’re welcome! I hope you love it, sorrel really is a delicious spring green 🙂

      Reply
  9. nancy @instanomss

    May 18, 2020 at 1:34 pm

    5 stars
    i love sorels but never have any in my garden! I should try it this summer! thanks for the recipe!

    Reply
    • SabCurrie

      May 18, 2020 at 2:43 pm

      You’re welcome and thanks for chiming in!

      Reply
  10. Terri

    May 18, 2020 at 8:19 pm

    5 stars
    I didn’t even know sorrel was a thing, especially a thing that you could make pesto out of! It sounds delicious – I wonder if I could grow it in Calgary’s short growing season?

    Reply
  11. Rima

    May 20, 2020 at 1:20 pm

    Do you use roasted or unfrosted hazelnuts for this?

    Reply
    • Rima

      May 20, 2020 at 1:21 pm

      I meant roasted or raw

      Reply
      • SabCurrie

        May 20, 2020 at 1:23 pm

        Hi Rima, both will work well but for a slightly smoother consistency, I use raw Hazelnuts 🙂

        Reply
        • Rima

          May 20, 2020 at 2:09 pm

          Great, thank you! Is peeled better? I’m very much looking to trying your recipe. I actually picked up sorrel for the first time from the farmers market and just cooked it with olive oil, butter, and shallots (and topped on salmon). Your pesto sounds great so it will be my next way to try sorrel

          Reply
          • SabCurrie

            May 20, 2020 at 2:10 pm

            Peeled is marginally better but very time consuming so up to you. You’ll find the sorrel has a much brighter flavour used raw in the pest than cooked. I hope you get a chance to let me know how you like it after you try it 🙂

          • Rima

            May 20, 2020 at 2:50 pm

            Definitely will do! I plan to try in a week or so after I get sorrel from the farmers market this weekend.how long does the pesto last once I make it?

          • SabCurrie

            May 20, 2020 at 3:11 pm

            3 days in fridge, a month or more in freezer.

          • Rima

            May 20, 2020 at 3:05 pm

            Will do! It might be a week or so. How long will it last in the fridge?

          • SabCurrie

            May 20, 2020 at 3:11 pm

            3 days in fridge though the top may brown a little. If longer, this freezes very well.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Join Us On Social

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Shop West Coast Kitchen Garden

West Coast Kitchen Garden Homewares Shop

West Coast Kitchen Garden Homewares Shop

West Coast Kitchen Garden on Facebook

West Coast Kitchen Garden on Facebook
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

Copyright © 2021 West Coast Kitchen Garden on the Foodie Pro Theme