When it comes to cooking, I tend to keep things simple this time of year. Once our CSA starts up in the late spring, I find myself doing much less grocery shopping. Instead, we do our best to eat the fresh produce that we get from our CSA, supplemented with a few essentials that I try to pick up at the local farmers’ market.
While I enjoy eating all of the fresh produce and keeping things simple in the kitchen, it does hinder my recipe development process a bit. Most of the vegetables that are available locally are not really what I consider to be cooking vegetables… We get lettuce, spring onions, radishes, and other great salad ingredients. But, one can only write so many blog posts about salads.
In the past, I have often made up for my lack of creative cooking with lots of dessert recipes. However, one of the unexpected side effects of my pregnancy has been the fact that I don’t have much of a taste for sweets anymore. I’m not really complaining… But, it has left me with fewer ideas for new recipes and blog posts.
I will be the first to tell you that today’s recipe isn’t groundbreaking… And, it wasn’t the result of some great inspiration on my part. Instead, it was just a way to use a few of the ingredients I still had on hand from last week’s CSA share. I was planning to make shredded pork tacos for dinner (with a lovely organic pork roast I picked up at the farmer’s market), and I remembered that I had two big bags of garlic scapes in the fridge. Since I also had a big bag of fresh cilantro, I decided to make a green garlic scape taco sauce with the two ingredients. I needed something to tie the sauce together, so I went searching in the pantry. I came up with a can of mild green chiles, and I knew I was in business.
After throwing everything together in my mini food processor and adjusting the taste with a bit of lime juice and salt, I had a surprisingly good taco sauce on my hands. While it wasn’t as fancy as a tomatillo salsa, we didn’t mind at all. (I will add, though, that tomatillos would be a great substitute for the canned chiles here if you happen to have some on hand.) It had a nice bright and fresh flavor from the cilantro and the garlic scapes added a nice punch of garlic. It was fresh, simple, and fast… And, we certainly enjoyed it drizzled over our tacos for dinner!
Garlic Scape Taco Sauce
Makes about 3/4 cup
- 4 ounce can fire roasted green chiles
- 6 garlic scapes, roughly chopped
- 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves
- 1/2 lime
- Kosher salt
Combine the chiles, garlic scapes, and cilantro leaves in a small food processor. Pulse until well chopped. Squeeze the juice of the lime half down over the mixture. Blend until smooth. Season to taste with salt. Serve immediately.
Love finding good recipes for scapes! They’re always the random CSA find that calls for creativity. :)
This looks great, Jen!!
What an awesome way to top your tacos (which, by the way, look awesome) :) I’ve still never tried garlic scapes, but I so want to!
This reminds me of many of my ‘recipe development’ forays. What do I have on hand and what do I need to use up? I love these flavors…and those tacos look fabulouso!
Can I use the smaller tops from the wild garlic I have growing all around my wildflower area? If so what amount should I substitute? Thanks, as I will not have garlic planted until the fall here in Texas.
Hi, Edie – I have never tried using the tops from wild garlic, but it sounds like it could work. I think you’d want about 1/4 cup, roughly chopped. You could adjust the flavors from there.
Best taco sauce ever! I’m a huge green chile fan so I’m sure this sauce will send me to the moon! :)
This sounds incredible, Jen. I (sadly) don’t live anywhere near a farmer’s market and have yet to try garlic scapes. I love your creative use of them for this taco sauce. Bravissima!
How very creative of you Jen! Not just the great garlic scape taco sauce but using the shredded pork in your tacos! I never think to use pork or chicken when making tacos and thanks to you I’m now thinking how good they would be.
Some of the most creative recipes come from “what do I have that I need to use up”. Your creation would be good on any meat as a condiment.
I was given a ton scapes and ended up freezing many of them for use later in the year Using and Preserving Garlic Scapes
Having eaten recently IN Mexico I can attest to the fact that this would go beautifully with all manner of Mexican foods :)