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Kale Pesto on Toast

A super simple, use what you have in the fridge, kind of snack.

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Why it works: Kale and garlic work together. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 490 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep5 min

Ingredients

Contains: wheat, tree nuts, soy (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: bread

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Strip any remaining tough stems from the kale, then chop the leaves coarsely.

  2. Trim the green onions and chop them, using both the white and green parts.

  3. Put the kale, garlic, green onions and toasted soy nuts in a food processor. Add a splash of water and pulse until finely chopped and well combined.

  4. Add the salt, then pulse again and taste, adding more salt if needed.

  5. Toast slices of bread until golden. Spread the kale pesto over the warm toast and serve right away.

By tastykitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Kale + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Kale + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + nutstop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together114 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Garlic + nutstop 19% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (kale, garlic, onion):

  1. Lentilsbetter flavor fit
  2. Cashew nutbetter flavor fit
  3. Chickpeabetter flavor fit
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against kale, garlic, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).