I got a huge amount of celery the other day. I also had a huge amount of carrots, but more celery than anything else. Additionally, I had a moderate amount of tomatoes and a small amount of onions, and that was pretty much it in terms of vegetables.
I wanted to make a nice meal that was very much based on what I had in the house, and then I decided to challenge myself- how many different ways can I actually make celery, to serve in one meal?
In the end, I made a meal with 9 different celery dishes, and I’m awfully proud of how much variety I managed with that one vegetable! And nearly all paleo, other than the peanut sauce for the salad, though to make that paleo I could have done it with almond butter instead.
I made chili with ground beef, onions, tomatoes, celery and carrots, and homemade chili powder.
I made cream of celery soup, with sauted onions, chicken stock that I made from my bones from a deboned chicken, a bunch of celery, a little bit of carrots, and
homemade cashew butter.
Foraging wild greens a lot taught me how to make bitter greens more palatable- seep them in boiling water first, squeeze out the liquid, then use the greens. So I did that with the celery greens for two different dishes- one is an Asian style sauted greens with onion, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, and hot pepper flakes, and topped with sesame seeds.
Then there was also horta- Greek cooked salad, made with the de-bittered celery greens, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and garlic.
Inspired by the infamous ants on a log recipe for celery with peanut butter, I decided to make a salad with celery, onions, deboned steamed chicken, and hearts of palm (from the scratch and dent store) with a Thai style peanut dressing (not shown).
Waldorf salad, made with mayo, celery, apples, and walnuts almost didn’t make the cut, even though that was our standard celery recipe growing up, because I thought I was out of apples- but then I found two, so made that with
homemade vegan mayo, made with ground chia seeds instead of my standard flax seed based mayo- and worked just as well.
I’ve made cardoons following this recipe before, so I decided to try that with celery instead. I used maple syrup instead of honey and cashews instead of pine nuts through.
And last but not least- I’d discovered
this recipe for celery soda which sounds weird but I figured I’d give it a try. I used
jaggery syrup instead of white sugar for this, and I didn’t actually measure anything out, just tried this basic idea, and I think it came out wonderfully.
According to the comments on the bottom of the soda recipe, the candied celery can be used to make a sweet relish, so I did that, adding some lemon juice and salt to the celery after- delicious!
I know- already so many celery recipes, but I had a few more ideas that just didn’t end up getting done, but probably some will end up happening at some point because I still have a bunch more left:
Celery leaf pesto.
Celery leaf chimichuri.
Celery stir fry.
Braised celery.
Celery risotto.
Celery crudites with dip.
Pickled celery spears.
Celery kimchi.
Celery slaw with mayo.
And of course I can’t forget celery in egg salad (was lunch today) and in tuna salad.
And then there were these random dishes, like this salad with tomatoes, celery, steamed chicken and hot sauce.
And this lentil risotto with celery and fermented tomato salsa and topped with chicken breast.
Celery- it really is much more versatile than people give it credit!
What is your go-to recipe for celery? Do you think you’ll be trying any of these ideas?
