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If you're a gardener like us and have ever planted swiss chard, you too know that when it produces, it produces a lot! Often time we are left wondering what to do with it all, or how do we preserve our swiss chard harvest. Today we are going to share with you how we preserve the remainder of our spring swiss chard harvest for months to come by making a homemade pesto sauce that is easily frozen for use later.

Growing Swiss Chard

Swiss chard is super easy to grow and quite prolific. It’s technically a biennial plant (it has a two-year lifecycle), but most gardeners grow it as an annual from seed or purchased starts from the store. There are also many types of swiss chard varieties and they come in a wide range of colors. Specific chard varieties may vary slightly, but most typically take 50-60 days to grow to maturity. We typically grow our swiss chard in the spring and fall when the temperatures are cooler, but many gardeners have success growing chard all summer long. Chard likes full sun to partial shade but has a tendency to bolt when exposed to high temperatures. We recommend looking at your specific zone to determine when the best time to plant is for you.

Cooking with Swiss Chard

Swiss chard can be cooked up in many different ways. Most often, we see chard blanched and cooked up in a saute. We have made chard wraps stuffed with rice and meat and smothered in tomato sauce. You can use your chard in any way you would use kale or spinach. Chard is loaded with vitamins A and C and considered by many to be a ‘Super Green’. Recently, we discovered turning our swiss chard into a pesto and it’s delicious.

This pesto sauce will go great on any pasta, as a marinade for seafood or chicken, and can even be used to make pesto pizza. If you like basil pesto, this tastes JUST as good and a great way to preserve your swiss chard harvest. This pesto sauce is easy as Sunday morning and don't have to worry about exact measurements. If you don't have pine nuts, don't worry, you can substitute walnuts or almonds. This recipe will fill an ice cube tray (about 12 cubes) and most pastas or pizzas require 2 - 3 cubes.

Swiss Chard Pesto Recipe

Ingredients:

NOTE: We do not add oil to the pesto prior to freezing because this allows us to control how much oil we want in any given recipe at the time of serving.

Yield: 1 ice cube tray (for 12 individual cubes of pesto)

• 3 cups blanched chard *this will usually take 2-3 large bunches of fresh chard

• 1/4 cup pine buts *can be substituted with walnuts or almonds

• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

• 3-5 whole cloves of garlic *to personal garlic tolerance

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Blanch chard in boiling water for 60 seconds. Let cool in a colander. Chard should still be moist when ready to blend.

2. In a blender or food processor, add all ingredients and blend well. Texture should be pesto like but not necessarily smooth because we have omit the oil.

3. Scoop in to ice cube tray and freeze overnight. Remove cubes from tray and store in freezer for up to 6 months for best quality.

To reconstitute the pesto later:

Simply pull 2-3 cubes of frozen pesto and place in a mixing bowl. Add an 1/8 cup olive oil and defrost for 10-15 seconds. Mix well.

We hope you enjoyed this easy pesto recipe. We love to do this at the end of the swiss chard growing season (right before the chard goes to bolt) as a way to preserve our harvest for the months to come. It’s simple, delicious, and tastes just like a basil pesto.

Happy cooking!

Lucas & Beth