Save Your Carrot Tops And Add A Sweet Crunch To Your Salads

One of chefs' favorite tricks in the kitchen is to make something out of nothing (or, at least, almost nothing). In fact, some of the most popular dishes in the world were invented out of necessity, using up whatever ingredients were available. For example, Caesar salads were made out of the only ingredients — eggs, parmesan cheese, lettuce, etc. — left in Chef Caesar Cardini's kitchen (which is how Caesar salad got its name). You can channel that thrifty chef-energy in your home kitchen by using up parts of veggies that normally get tossed in the trash or compost, including the leafy tops of fresh carrots.

Carrot tops taste a bit like parsley, arugula, and celery, which are all welcome additions to any mix of salad greens. If you shop for veggies at the farmers' market or anywhere else where carrots are sold with their leaves still attached, don't throw those tops away; cut them off, wash them, and whirl them up in the salad spinner with your fresh lettuces for a healthy, unexpected addition to your salad routine. Not only will you save a little money and stretch out your salad greens with a little extra roughage, but you'll also help save the planet by reducing food waste.

Food waste around the globe is a huge problem. According to the U.S.D.A., Americans waste as much as 30% to 40% of their food supply, which in 2010 worked out to be approximately 130 billion pounds or $160 billion worth of food. Not only is uneaten food a colossal waste of money, but it's also extremely bad for the environment, contributing to greenhouse gasses and taking up space in landfills.

You can do your part to help out, however, just by being mindful of what you throw away in the kitchen and finding ways to eat all of the food you buy. Produce, especially, gets thrown away a lot, but there are many ways to use food scraps to make delicious meals, like saving peels for making stock or repurposing pickle and olive juice for the base of salad dressings.

Carrot tops are often thrown away because some people mistakenly believe they're poisonous, which is probably because they taste bitter. They're perfectly safe to eat, though, and modern tastes have adapted to embrace lots of bitter greens, like kale, radicchio, mustard greens, and broccoli rabe. So, if you like any (or all) of those bitter flavors, then you're going to love carrot tops.

One of the easiest ways to use your carrot tops is to mix them in with salad greens for a little extra texture and taste. If you're skeptical, consider them like a fresh herb; in fact, there are lots of lettuce mixtures sold at the grocery store that have fresh herbs like dill, cilantro, and parsley in them. Adding carrot tops is the same idea.

If you enjoy the crunch and flavor of carrot greens in your salad, you can also use them in other recipes. Try subbing them in place of parsley in a gremolata or instead of basil for a pesto. You can also sauté them like kale or mustard greens — or mix them in with kale and mustard greens for cooking. Alternatively, you could use them in place of spinach to make a warm salad in the cooler months.

Once you start munching on carrot greens in salads, you'll start to find all kinds of places to sneak them in, saving them from the trash bin. You'll probably even wonder how you could've ever thrown away half the plant in the first place. Plus, you'll be a true chef for making something gourmet out of practically nothing.