What can I do with leek scapes?

herbantherapy
herbantherapy Posts: 453 ✭✭✭✭
edited November 2020 in Cooking

I have a ton of leek and walking onion scapes. What can I do with them? Can I cut them and let the bulb grow? Does this mean it’s time to harvest? I see lots of garlic scape recipes but I don’t think they all translate the same for onion flavor. I’d like to preserve as much as I can...could I freeze them or pickle them? What would I DO with pickled leek scapes??

Send your ideas, recipes and advice please!


Comments

  • chimboodle04
    chimboodle04 Posts: 286 ✭✭✭

    Are these leeks from this year or last year? I ask because I have never had a leek flower unless I let it overwinter and I wanted to use it to save the seed - afterwards, mine pretty much died and was not usable as a leek. I may be wrong, but I believe that it will not last past this year now that it has flowered, so I would make sure to use them - I could be wrong though! Worth double checking... I usually just pinch off the scape part from onions to allow the bulb part to grow bigger. If you want to use them or the leek scapes, my guess is that you could cut the flower stalk off down as far as you can and use the stalk part like an onion or maybe green onion, but I would probably get rid of the flower part - especially on those bigger ones since they might not be as nice to eat at that stage...

  • herbantherapy
    herbantherapy Posts: 453 ✭✭✭✭

    @chimboodle04 these were planted in November so they have over wintered. I harvested about half already but this bunch got away from me as I worked other parts of the garden.

  • chimboodle04
    chimboodle04 Posts: 286 ✭✭✭

    @herbantherapy I would try to let some of the bigger ones go to seed if it were me - yay for free seed for next year! :)