Being an adorer of Italian pesto for most of my life, I’ve recently been playing with new recipes for similar condiments. Mind you, they all taste vastly different. The process is much the same though. Throw some fresh herbs, some sort of nuts or seeds, extra virgin olive oil, something citrusy and/or acidic, and a handful of fresh garlic cloves (because, let’s be honest, there’s no such thing as too much garlic) into a food processor, buzz it a few times, and like magic something gorgeous emerges.

Zhoug is a revalation. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve turned a bunch of fresh cilantro into a wilted black puddle in my veggie drawer. I can’t get enough of it, but I can never seem to use it up fast enough. This recipe remedies that!

Zhoug is good on tacos (one of the major food groups, IMO), bean and grain bowls, tofu scramble, potato salad, anything Mexican, flat bread, pizza, swirled into hummus, thinned as a salad dressing, drizzled over oven roasted veggies, and on a vegan Banh Mi sub… OMG. Are you ready for this magic? Here ya go…

4 large garlic cloves

2 cups coarsely chopped cilantro

4 jalapeno peppers or serrano peppers, seeds removed from all but one

1 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1 teaspoon cumin

3/4 cup unfiltered, extra virgin olive oil

juice of one large lime

Chop the cilantro. Remove the seeds from three of the peppers. Slice the peppers and discard the seeds. Put this, along with the rest of the ingredients, into the bowl of a large food processor. Pulse until smooth. Transfer to a canning jar with a tight fitting lid. This will keep in your refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Enjoy!

~Melissa