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This should be one of those Duh moments. Waste not want not, use it up, and make do.
I prefer to trim my celery to prepare it for storage and I use the trimmings for this recipe.
- Leaves from one bunch of celery
- flaky sea salt or kosher sea salt
Pick the leaves from each celery stalk, leaving the stems behind. The outer leaves
tend to be dark green and hearty, the inner leaves pale green and tender. Use
them all.
Rinse the leaves with cold water in a strainer, and then shake off as much of the
water as you can. At this point you want to dry the leaves as much as possible,
so they toast when you cook them, a salad spinner works for this. Gently pat
them dry in a clean dish towel, or paper towels. Once dry you have two options
for toasting the leaves.
1) If I have a lot of leaves, I arrange them in a single layer on a baking sheet, and
then bake in a 350F oven for about 5-7 minutes. Bake until dehydrated and crispy, but not browned.
2) If I have fewer leaves, or just don’t feel like heating the oven, I’ll throw them in a large skillet. Single layer if possible, over medium-low heat in the pan.
Again, you want to (barely) toast them, not brown the leaves much.
In either case, when you’re done cooking. Remove from heat and let the leaves cool
completely. They’ll crisp up even more at this point. When cool, use your fingers to crumble the leaves completely, discarding any leaves that aren’t crispy.
Combine equal parts celery leaves and salt in a jar, and either stir or shake to
distribute the celery leaves evenly throughout.
Related articles
- Homemade Celery Salt (101cookbooks.com)
- It’s All In The Stalk. (veggiefitness.wordpress.com)
- Study: Celery Can Improve Your Memory (blisstree.com)
