Grilled Vegetables with Celery Salt and Green Herb Sauce

I made grilled vegetables with celery salt and green herb sauce for lunch today. In fact, I only grilled the vegetables as I’d made the accompaniments earlier in the week. I’ve been excitedly pouring through the pages of my new Cornersmith cookbook https://www.cornersmith.com.au/collections/cookbook/products/use-it-all The book is a fabulous guide to ‘a more sustainable kitchen.’ For those of you who know me, you know that I am passionate about minimising food waste, and for some years now, I’ve been experimenting with using parts of fruits and vegetables that we would normally discard.

The green sauce is a riff on the Cornersmith recipe, using what I had on hand – fennel tops, dill stems and spring onion stems. The celery salt is simply made up of oven-dried celery leaves and salt. The green sauce was delicious served with last night’s  baked fish, and I’ve been using celery salt when roasting chicken and vegetables. For the grilled vegetables, asparagus is in season, so I picked up a couple of bunches from the local market: https://farmerandson.com.au I also added the dark green part of the leek. This is often discarded, too, but it softens beautifully when grilled.

If you’re looking for ways to use up all of your vegetables, you might like this celeriac leaf pesto: Spring Minestrone with Celeriac Leaf Pesto

What’s your favourite way to use up parts of vegetables you’d normally throw away?

Best wishes,

Amanda
PS: If you’d like to read more, please subscribe to my monthly newsletter for stories, recipes and tips for simple, nutritious meals.

Print Recipe

Grilled Vegetables with Celery Salt and Green Herb Sauce

Grilled vegetables with celery salt and green herb sauce is a quick meal for one or two, or it can be expanded to serve as a colourful side dish.

Servings: 2 people

Author: Amanda Lawson

Ingredients

Celery Salt

• 2 cups celery leaves from stalks from one full bunch of celery
• 1/4 tsp flaked sea salt

Green Herb Sauce

• 1 fennel - the leafy fronds and thin stems reserve bulb for another dish
• 1 bunch spring onions - the dark green parts
• 1 bunch dill - the stems
• 1 - 1 1/2 lemons, zest and juice
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
• 100 - 150 mL olive oil
• flaked sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Grilled Vegetables

• 1 bunch apsaragus, end trimmed
• 1 cob corn, silks removed, and kernels cut from the cob
• 1 leek the dark green part
• 1 handful cherry tomatoes

Instructions

Celery Salt

• Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan-forced) and line 2 (or more, if needed) baking trays.
• Wash and pat dry the celery leaves and lay them out flat on the trays.
• Cook the leaves for about 20 minutes until they're dry and papery in texture.
• When the celery leaves are cool, grind then to a fine powder in a blender or a food processor with the salt.
• Store in an airtight jar for up to 3 months.

Green Herb Sauce

• Place herb stems, leaves and garlic in a food proceesor with 100 mL of the olive and the zest and juice of one lemon. Blend until smooth. Season to taste, add more lemon juice if required. If you prefer a thinner sauce, add more olive oil.
• Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.

Grilled Vegetables

• Preheat the grill to 200°C and line an oven tray with foil.
• Lay the aspargus, leek strips, tomaotes and corn kernels on the tray. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a pinch of celery salt.
• Grill the vegetables for 5 to 10 minutes until cooked to your liking.
• Serve immediately or at room temperature with a dollop of green sauce.

Notes

Make this dish more substantial by adding some soft boiled eggs and a handle of toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds. Or, serve it as a side dish alongside a grilled or baked white fish.