Wild Ramp Pesto {What Springtime Tastes Like}

A wild ramp pesto that tastes like springtime. Allium tricoccum aka ramps are harbingers of true spring and I make this easy recipe every year.

This ramp pesto recipe incorporates both wild ramps and garlic mustard as they generally come up at the same time. You can omit one or the other. The addition of basil really makes for a more complex flavour.

Use pine nuts or walnuts or even pistachios.

Enjoy this Spring Pesto Recipe of Wild Ramps, Garlic Mustard, & Basil with pasta, gnocchi, in cold pasta salads, on nut and seed crackers, on eggs, with grilled meats and seafood — however you enjoy pesto.

Much like traditional pesto, we will be using a mortar and pestle, but you can use your food processor too.

Looking for more ramp recipes to make use of the springtime abundance? Try my EASY Wild Ramp Paneer Cheese. It requires no special ingredient or equipment and can even be frozen to enjoy long after the ramps have disappeared from the forests.

Use your wild ramp pesto in pasta recipes and more.

Jump to:

• Foraging For Ramps takes place across North America In The Springtime
• Responsible & Ethical Foraging Of Wild Edibles Is Our Responsibility
• As For Garlic Mustard — Take it, Take it All
• Poisonous Lookalikes
• How To Identify & Forage For Wild Ramps
• Cooking With Ramps (Tips & Ideas)
• Ingredients
• Process
• Variations
• Storage
• Top Tip
• Recipe
• Comments

Foraging For Ramps takes place across North America In The Springtime

Seeing wild ramps finally start to make an appearance just makes it feel like springtime.

Ramps go by many names -- wild leeks, wild onions, spring onions, and wild garlic. These perennial wild greens taste like a mild onion crossed with garlic. Foraging for ramps, or any other wild edibles, is a great way to get outdoors into the woods and parks.

Responsible & Ethical Foraging Of Wild Edibles Is Our Responsibility

Ramp seeds take anywhere from 6 to 18 months to germinate.

The plants take 5 to 7 years to produce seeds.

Over-foraging is a serious concern and we must go into the woods with sustainability principles firmly in mind to ensure that these plants can keep coming back.

General harvest principles state the "⅔ rule" -- or -- no more than ⅓ of a population should be harvested.

I no longer take the entire plant despite how abundant any particular section of ramps may be. I now only harvest the leaves, one or two per plant.

The leaves are the best-tasting part of the ramp anyways so you are not actually losing anything.

I highly recommend this article from Agroforestry Solutions which asks Are Ramps Being Overharvested?

As For Garlic Mustard — Take it, Take it All

Garlic Mustard is insanely invasive and damaging to our native plants.

It's also notoriously difficult to eradicate.

Every part of the garlic mustard plant is edible, from the leaves to roots, and even the seeds in late summer. It smells like — garlicky mustard, shockingly.

Crush a leaf between your fingers and the scent is unmistakable.

Unlike wild ramps, you can pretty much go nuts with picking garlic mustard and not worry that you're harming the ecosystem or taking away food from the wildlife.

Ramps and garlic mustard tend to emerge at the same time, and although garlic mustard will stick around throughout the summer months, it is best to harvest it early in the season before it becomes bitter.

Test out a leaf for flavour first to see if you even like the taste.

I always find wild ramps and garlic mustard in the same forests which is a bonus.

And the best part is that both of these wild edibles are SO EASY to spot and differentiate from anything else that you practically have to be trying to poison yourself to fail at identifying either of them.

Honestly, if you're new to foraging — start with ramps and/or garlic mustard. Just remember that sustainability is a serious concern with ramps and a free-for-all with the invasive garlic mustard.

Poisonous Lookalikes

When it comes to ramps, there is a poisonous lookalike — the lily-of-the-valley. It's toxic for humans and animals alike.

Luckily only the ramp will smell anything like onion-garlic. The lily will have a pleasant floral scent if in bloom but otherwise, it will just smell of nothing much at all.

In fact, anything you find in the forest that smells like onion/garlic will be edible.

There are countless varieties of wild alliums in the forest, ramps are just one very trendy type.

If you're buying your wild ramps from a farmer's market, you won't have to worry about this at all.

How To Identify & Forage For Wild Ramps

Starting sometime in April until sometime in May (it's weather dependent), the forests will begin to show signs of brilliant green ramps amongst the brown decay of last year's vegetation.

Luckily they are easy to identify.

Go to shady hardwood forests with rich, moist soils. Avoid swamps or marshes as ramps cannot survive bogged in water.

Ramps will have 2-3 leaves per plant. The leaves are smooth, broad and richly green in colour.

Stems are usually reddish-burgundy but they can be white-coloured as well.

The bulbs at the end are snowy white and look like onions.

Remember that ramps will always smell like onion. If it does not have an onion odour, do not eat it. It is likely the poisonous lookalike lily-of-the-valley.

See the pictures below for identification purposes, but please remember to only harvest 1-2 leaves from a plant and not the entire thing. It can take decades for a fertile patch of ramps to reestablish itself. Harvesting only the leaves  — the best-tasting part of the plant — and leaving the bulbs alone is the responsible thing to do for every forager.

Cooking With Ramps (Tips & Ideas)

Ramps are versatile and delicious. Treat them like spinach. Ramps can be eaten raw (like in this pesto recipe) or sautéed.

Here are some ideas and pairings:

• As mentioned, make this ridiculously easy wild ramp paneer cheese that requires no special ingredients or equipment.
• Make a compound butter with ramp leaves.
• Sauté ramps in bacon fat, butter, or olive oil as a quick side dish for anything.
• Pair sauteéd ramps with eggs and hollandaise sauce.
• Make a springtime risotto with chicken stock, asparagus, and ramps. (See my Mastering Risotto article and recipe)
• Replace the traditional pesto in this pancetta pasta recipe with ramps instead.
• Make a soup of ramps and seasonal vegetables. (See my Grilled Vegetable Soup Recipe)
• Add ramps to quiches and omelettes.
• Pair with salmon and poached eggs.
• Make cheesy biscuits with ramps.
• Add raw to salads (See My Salad of Nasturtium Leaves & Flowers)

Ingredients

• Wild Ramps
• Garlic Mustard
• Basil
• Pine Nuts (Or Walnuts)
• Olive Oil
• Parmigiano Reggiano
• Salt & Pepper

Remember that you can omit the basil and garlic mustard if you want.

See recipe card for quantities.

Process

If using a mortar and pestle, add the ingredients in the following order and pound/mix as you add each new addition until it is incorporated: pine nuts, ramps, garlic mustard and basil (if using), generous pinch of sea salt, olive oil, parmigiano, olive oil, black pepper.

Variations

Change the quantities: play with the quantities of ingredients to tailor this pesto to you and your tastes.

Change the plants/herbs: use what you have on hand. If you don't have basil and/or garlic mustard — leave them out and add more ramp leaves.

Change the nuts: pine nuts, walnuts, and even pistachios work wonderfully here.

Change the cheese: adding some Asiago is very nice!

Storage

This will not store long or freeze well. Enjoy the same day you make it, preferably shortly after preparing. If you want a recipe that incorporates ramps but can be frozen — try the ramp paneer cheese.

Top Tip

While a food processor is a convenient tool to have in your kitchen, a mortar and pestle really works better for a pesto recipe. Try it and see the difference. Your resulting wild ramp pesto will be silky smooth with no hint of bitterness.