Pesto di cavolo nero (Tuscan Kale Pesto) (2024)

Generally speaking I’m not a picky eater. Just the opposite in fact. There are very few things I won’t eat or at least try. I’ve had alligator in Florida, live lobster sashimi and rattlesnake in New York, fried lamb’s brains and pasta with calf’s intestines in Rome, fermented cassava balls in Nigeria, durian fruit and duck embryo in The Phillippines, ant larvae soup in Cambodia, sea cucumber in Hong Kong, boiled chicken feet and pan-roasted leafcutter ants in Colombia, grilled cow heart in Peru, curried rat in Guyana, grasshopper tacos in Mexico, frogs, snails and horse meat steak in Paris… But I draw the line at kale.

Or at least most kale. I actually don’t dislike Tuscan kale, aka dinosaur kale or lacinato kale in English, known in Italy as cavolo nero, literally “black cabbage” due to its dark green color. My main problem with kale is its implacable fibrousness, which no amount of cooking seems to get rid of. Tuscan kale has relatively tender leaves which do, in fact, yield to cooking. Still, I prefer to hide it in a minestrone, a farinata or ribollita rather than “enjoying” it on its own. With one exception, that is…

Pesto di cavolo nero is a cold weather pesto made with Tuscan kale rather than the basil you’d find in pesto genovese. The kale is pre-blanched to tenderize them and help fix the color and, although you can prepare this pesto with pine nuts, I much prefer the deeper flavor of another cold weather favorite, walnuts. The milder parmigiano-reggiano usually substitutes for pecorino sardo. Garlic is often omitted as well, but I quite like to keep it.

You can use pesto di cavolo nero in all the usual ways you might use basil pesto, including of course as a dressing for pasta. I think it’s particularly lovely on a ribbon pasta like tagliatelle or that most Tuscan of pastas, pappardelle. But it takes to just about any pasta you fancy. It can also enliven soups or, for hardcore pesto lovers like myself, even served on toasted bread.

Ingredients

• 1 bunch of Tuscan kale, about 200g/7 oz untrimmed
• A handful of shelled walnuts, about 50g/2 oz
• 1-2 cloves of garlic (optional)
• 30g/1 oz freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano
• olive oil
• salt

Directions

Trim the kale leaves of their thick stems, then blanch them in boiling water for about 3 minutes.

Drain the kale leaves in a colander and run them quickly under cold water. Squeeze them dry and chop them roughly.

Add the blanched kale leaves to the bowl of a food processor, along with the walnuts, garlic and a small pinch of salt. Pulse until you have a rough paste. Now run the processor continuously while you drizzle in enough olive oil to produce a smooth and dense paste. (If you feel the need to measure, try about 125ml or 1/2 cup of oil.)

Turn the paste out into a small mixing bowl. Mix in the grated cheese. If need be, thin it out with more olive oil (or some of the kale cooking water) so you have a very thick but just pourable mixture. The oil should make it glisten.

Taste and adjust for seasoning.

Notes

The pre-blanching isn’t essential—Italian recipes go both ways, with some advising that the tender center leaves of a head of cavolo nero don’t need boiling—but here in the US, the leaves are sold separated from the plant, so who knows whether they’re from the center or not? Anyway, I just blanch them to be sure. Tuscan kale might be tender relative to other types of kale, but they have nothing like the delicate texture of basil!

Otherwise as you can plainly see, the recipe is basically foolproof. Practically a “non-recipe”.

If you want to use pesto di cavolo nero to dress pasta, use the same technique as you would with a basil pesto: Place a good dollop in the bottom of a serving bowl, than add your pasta on top, along with a bit of the pasta cooking water. Mix well and adjust: add more pesto if it needs it, more water if it’s too thick. Serve right away.

Variations

Of course, you can feel free to play around with the measurements to suit your taste. (When I’m not blogging I usually don’t actually measure anyway, but some of our readers insist.) I’m a big fan of garlicky pesto so I add two cloves, even though most Italian recipes omit it altogether or call for just one clove. Some will advise you to blanch the garlic along with the kale to mute its power.

One common but rather surprising ingredient you’ll find in many recipes for pesto di cavolo nero: A pinch of red hot pepper (!) Personally this doesn’t appeal to me but that’s me.

Other variations include the use of almonds instead of (or along with) walnuts. Or pine nuts as you would in a basil pesto. For me, the strong taste of walnuts pairs best with the flavor of Tuscan kale, but the other two will give you a more delicate result.

Or substitute pecorino (preferably Tuscan, of course) for the parmigiano-reggiano. It’s more assertive than parmigiana-reggiano but much less sharp than the Roman pecorino we can find here in the US. If you like a creamier pesto di cavolo nero, especially for pasta, I enjoy adding a dollop of ricotta to the bowl along with the pesto.

Giulia Scarpaleggia of Juls Kitchen, a popular Tuscan cooking blog, likes to sauté her kale leaves in garlic and olive oil rather than blanching them.

Making ahead

Pesto di cavolo nero will keep in the fridge for a couple of days if you just cover the top with a bit of olive oil to seal it. Truth be told, I’ve kept it much longer than that and it was still perfectly edible. And I imagine that it would freeze well, though I haven’t tried it.

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