Use Garlic Scapes in Your Cooking

Credit: Carol Pope

Scapes are easy to harvest – especially when you can wrap them around your arm like a bracelet!

Snip scapes when they form one loop or two to direct each plant’s energy to the bulb

Garlic isn’t just about the bulb. Collect scapes and add them to your salads, pestos and soups

It’s time now in my garden to pick scapes, those cute and curly stems that lead to a newly developing seedhead on each of our garlic plants. It’s best to snip scapes when they have formed one loop or two to direct each plant’s energy to the bulb below.

And the fun is that you don’t need a pot to put your pluckings in – you can simply pop each scape onto your wrist like a bracelet!

Garlic Scape Food Uses

Delicious and crunchy, scapes can be chopped up for salads, sautés, stirfries, soups, omelettes or any other dish that gains from a garlicky green. Or we pitch some into a food processor with fresh basil, olive oil and pine, hazel or pecan nuts and a nip of salt for unforgettable pesto.

And tonight I’ll be trying this dip recipe by garden-to-kitchen wizard Sharon Hanna: combine a scape or two, cooked white beans, lemon or lime juice, mint leaves and a bit of olive oil.

If any part of the scape seems tough, we simply freeze those bits for future simmering in soup stocks.