28 Recipes Using Garlic Scapes {Recipe Round Up}

Got garlic scapes? Need inspiration? Here's a round up of more than 30 recipes, from appetizers to main dishes to side dishes, using that mild seasonal treat the garlic scape.

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One of the reasons I started this blog was to provide practical support for local eating.  

Eating locally means you're eating foods in season--when they taste the best! It also means you're introduced to new foods. At the start of the farmer's market and CSA season these funny looking garlic scapes are many folks' first experience with a new food.


I'm so pleased with this Garlic Scape Recipe Round Up! Right here in one a single place I've gathered more than 28 recipes using this wonderfully versatile and locally available plant part.

Pin this for later!

The garlic scape is indeed a plant part! Like I use unwanted onion skins and celery leaves in my frugal freezer Soup Stock Packs, while saving the main part of the vegetable to use/eat directly, the scape is the {unwanted} flowering portion of the garlic bulb. After cutting off the scapes and using them in one of the dishes below, you'll still harvest the Main Attraction, the garlic bulb, a few weeks later.  How cool is that?

This amazing photo is from Stephanie of Garden Therapy

My fellow food bloggers and I share what you can fix if you have scapes from your garden (it's easy to grow your own garlic), your Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, or your farmer's market. Garlic scapes are ready to harvest all at once, only once a year, so it's a good idea to have a mess of ideas in your toolkit so you can plan ahead in the kitchen.


I've broken down the recipes by category [because cataloging recipes seems to be something I like to do on this blog]. I've got pestos, starters, sides and mains.  There are garlic scape recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  There are gluten free and vegan recipes using garlic scapes.  There are recipes for stove top, oven, microwave, and grill.

For even more recipes using garlic scapes, please see my Garlic and Garlic Scape Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.


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My favorite way to use garlic scapes is to put up a mess of Garlic Scape Pistachio Pesto. I freeze it into small cubes and use it year round in salad dressings, Chicken Garlic Scape Meatballs, pizza sauces, Herbed Garlic Scape Cream Cheese Spread/Dip, my Cheesy Garlic Scape Pesto Flatbread, Grilled Garlic Scape Pesto Smashed Potatoes, Shrimp and Garlic Scape Pesto Scampi, and this hummus. I've got a quick video how I make it, and you can find the Garlic Scape Pistachio Pesto recipe specifics here.

Pin my Garlic Scape Pistachio Pesto recipe here!

While there is no single garlic scape pesto recipe, my favorite is my Garlic Scape Pistachio Pesto recipe. While arranging all the links these bloggers have thoughtfully provided for me, I found a wide variety of pesto recipes.  Each recipe below is different--using a variety of leaves, a variety of nuts, but always using the mild garlic scape.  I thought I knew all there was about putting up pesto, but there's a wealth of information, tips, and tricks in these posts.





The Starters category covers appetizers, dips, and soups. When the weather is warm I like to eat lighter, and having appetizers for a Dip Dinner keeps my kitchen cool and my family happy. Dip dinners with a big plate of whatever's handy from the farm share makes it a fun way to eat a lot of vegetables.





One of my goals this year is to increase the number of side dish recipes on this blog--here are some ideas for all of us to use this summer.  I'm currently inspired to try Sarah's Garlic Scape Vinaigrette in a pasta salad or as a marinade for grilled vegetables. For more inspiration check these recipes out:





The Main Dishes with Garlic Scapes category covers breakfast dishes through dinner meals.  I remember touring a garlic farm in Japan where there was garlic wine (I was pregnant and didn't taste it though the spouse said it was . . . interesting) but I don't recall a garlic dessert.  I'm glad.




In addition to these Clickable Collages [I learned how thanks to Anyonita's tutorial] I've also added a Garlic Scape Recipes board on Pinterest, where I've pinned each post and will continue adding as I find more recipes using garlic scapes throughout the internet.  If you missed my many calls for garlic scape recipes and would like me to pin yours to my board, please feel free to leave the link in the comments and I'll add to the post. Thanks!



Since I'm still finding links I'd been squirreling away, let's make this 28+ recipes! :)

Susan's Fresh Primer: Green Garlic and Garlic Scapes

Casey's Feta and Gruyere Pizza

Lindsey's Garlic Scape Powder

Lindsey's Pickled Garlic Scapes