It can, at times, be difficult to push ourselves to try new recipes with our Durst Organic Growers produce because it’s just so dang good prepared simply, all on it’s own — raw, roasted, blanched, grilled, simply sautéed in some olive oil — we can’t get enough, why mess with a good thing? Especially at the start of each crop’s harvest season when the produce is singing.

Don’t get the wrong idea, though: we do a LOT of cooking with our produce, and we do LOVE to try new ways of preparing it. So, after eating all-asparagus, all-the-time, for the first few weeks of the season, we are ready to try something new.

But, what to try first?

After watching the episode of Pasta Grannies (if you’ve never had the pleasure of watching this show, enjoy!), we were completely inspired and wanted to play around with asparagus sauce ourselves.

Looks pretty great, right?

We tried making the asparagus sauce two ways: with blanched asparagus and with sautéed asparagus. While the blanched version was good*, the sautéed version was great. So here’s how we made it, under the lead of the Pasta Granny.

Asparagus Sauce:

Asparagus, Olive Oil, Garlic, Salt, Pepper

1) Snap the though ends off of one bunch of asparagus. Set aside

2) Heat a heavy bottomed pot or pan over med-high heat and add a few tablespoons of olive oil. Add crushed garlic cloves to infuse in the oil and remove from pan once very fragrant, but not brown. Put garlic cloves in food processor or blender, leaving oil in the pan.

3) Add asparagus to hot oil, season with salt and pepper (and maybe some crushed hot pepper flakes?) and sauté until tender and cooked through. Remove from pan and transfer to food processor (scrape the oil from the pan into the food processor, too!)

4) Pulse all ingredients in food processor until blended and smooth. As you blend, add olive oil if needed (we needed to add several more tablespoons) to get a smooth consistency.

5) Enjoy!

The very first time we made this sauce, it was for a Pasta Grannies inspired lasagna, and it was SO GOOD. Next, we used it as a pizza topping along with ricotta cheese, lemon zest, mint, prosciutto, and more asparagus — also SO GOOD. What will you use your asparagus sauce for? Roasted meats? Pasta? Toast? Veggies? Dip?

Let us know how you like it!

And, tell us: what’s your favorite new asparagus recipe you’ve tried?

*If you’re planning to use the sauce on something that will be further cooked (like a pizza), or if you prefer a more delicate flavor, you might find blanching to be the way to go. It maintains a more subtly sweet bright flavor, and will better maintain a nice bright color. To do this, blanch the asparagus until crisp-tender, and then proceed with the rest of the method above. You can either omit the garlic altogether, use raw garlic if you like, or infuse some of the oil with garlic as mentioned above (or, if you want to get really spring-y with it, try green garlic!).