Did you know that spruce tips are edible and packed with nutrients? These tender, bright green shoots grow at the ends of spruce tree branches and can be foraged to create a variety of unique and delicious recipes, including spruce tips pesto! Then try your hand at making chive blossom vinegar!
Sometimes, when you live in the middle of nowhere, you can be in the middle of cooking when you realize you're missing a key ingredient. It's those times I find myself substituting with whatever is on hand.
A few years back, while making a seafood pasta dish, I realized I didn't have basil (and I was halfway through the process). I did not want to make the thirty-minute drive into town to get some. Then I remembered a friend who had recently mentioned having tried spruce tips pesto.
Since I'm literally surrounded by spruce trees, I decided to alter my pesto recipe by substituting spruce tips for the basil. It was a huge hit with my husband, Scott, who still talks about my spruce tips pesto to anyone who'll listen!
Also, be sure to try my new pine needle soda using spruce tips!
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What Are Spruce Tips?
Spruce tips are the young, tender new growth that appears on spruce trees in the spring. These bright green shoots emerge at the ends of the branches and are softer, milder, and more citrusy than mature spruce needles.
For a brief window each year, usually in late spring, these tips are foraged for their unique flavor and nutritional benefits. They’re packed with vitamin C and have a crisp, lemony-pine taste that works beautifully in everything from teas and syrups to cocktails, baked goods, and savory dishes.
Think of them as the forest’s version of seasonal herbs—wild, fragrant, and fleeting.
Ingredients & Substitutions
- Spruce tips: Pick fresh spruce tips in spring.
- Garlic: Fresh garlic cloves, never jarred!
- Nuts: Since pine nuts are quite pricy, I used walnuts.
- Oil: Avocado oil or olive oil
- Spices: Salt, black pepper, freshly grated nutmeg, and crushed red pepper flakes.
- Cheese: Parmesan cheese
- Lemon zest: Some freshly grated lemon zest adds brightness.
*See recipe card for quantities.
How to Make Spruce Tips Pesto
- Add one cup of washed spruce tips into a food processor. Top with garlic, walnuts (or pine nuts), salt, pepper, nutmeg, and crushed red pepper, if using.
- Process the ingredients until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.
- While the machine is running, drizzle the oil into the food processor.
- Sprinkle parmesan cheese and lemon zest. Give it one last whirl.
- Stir the mixture into your favorite pasta dish, or as a substitute for pizza sauce.
What readers are saying...
So good and no spruce taste. Makes a great pasta condiment!
—Dennis Miller
Foraging Spruce Tips For Cooking
The best-tasting tips come from blue spruce, so if you have access to them, consider yourself lucky! The best time to harvest tips is in spring when they are young and tender. However, there's still plenty to pick in June, at least here in Montana.
Avoid picking too many from the same tree, especially from young trees. Pick the brighter, newer growth, which will be at the end of the branches.
Pro Tip: When picking, you are essentially pruning the tree. Therefore, be sure to pick from areas that are towards the bottom of the tree, or from interior branches. Picking from the top will stunt the growth of the tree.
FAQ
If you don't have access to spruce trees in your area, you can buy them online. Another option is to use pine tips or fir tips. Most conifer tips are edible, however, yew tree tips are considered poisonous.
Spruce tips can be used in all kinds of recipes, including pickles, spruce needle tea, jelly, and soda. They can also be used to make spruce tip syrup, salt, sugar, and added to shortbread cookies.
The best way to describe the flavor of spruce tips is piney and citrusy. The initial flavor is citrusy, which is followed by the taste of resin. Because of their strong flavor, a little goes a long way!
Soaking the tips in cold water helps to remove some of their resinous taste. It also helps the flavor mellow out a bit. This is also a good way to clean them and remove any insects or dust.
Other Spruce Tips Recipe Ideas
- Freeze them in ice cubes and use them in cocktails!
- Layer them in a mason jar with sugar to make syrup.
- Make spruce beer, wine, and mead.
- Make spruce tip ice cream & sorbets!
- Pickle them!
Equipment
To make sprue tips pesto, I recommend this small food processor. It really gets the job done. I use mine all the time!
Storage
Store the spruce tip pesto in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a week or freeze for longer storage.
Pro Tips
- Toss fresh, uncooked tips into a salad with other greens.
- Steep dried tips in hot water to make tea. Spruce is loaded with vitamin C and rich in potassium and magnesium, so the tea can be soothing for a sore throat. Adding a cinnamon stick, honey, and a squeeze of lemon juice has even more health benefits.
- Adding the tips to cold water will impart a mild flavor, similar to adding citrus or cucumber slices to your water.
- Use the tips in place of rosemary in recipes.
- The tips can also be used in various savory dishes.
For more information, you may enjoy reading the following post: Sprucelets: An Original Adirondack Medicine.
More Foraging Recipes
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
Recipe
Spruce Tips Pesto Recipe – A Unique Twist on Classic Pesto
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup spruce tips
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tablespoon walnuts or pine nuts
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- ⅛ teaspoon black pepper
- ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg (freshly grated)
- ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)
- ¼ cup parmesan cheese
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
Instructions
- Add one cup of washed spruce tips into a food processor. Top with garlic, walnuts (or pine nuts), salt, pepper, nutmeg, and crushed red pepper, if using.
- Process the ingredients until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.
- While the machine is running, drizzle the oil into the food processor.
- Sprinkle parmesan cheese and lemon zest. Give it one last whirl.
- Stir the mixture into your favorite pasta dish, or as a substitute for pizza sauce.
Notes
- Toss fresh, uncooked tips into a salad with other greens.
- Steep dried tips in hot water to make tea. Spruce is loaded with vitamin C, and rich in potassium and magnesium, so the tea can be soothing for a sore throat. Adding a cinnamon stick, honey, and a squeeze of lemon juice has even more health benefits.
- Adding the tips to cold water will impart a mild flavor, similar to adding citrus or cucumber slices to your water.
- Use the tips in place of rosemary in recipes.
- The tips can also be used in various savory dishes.
Hilda Sterner says
I hope you try this recipe, you'll love it!
Dennis Miller says
So good, and no spruce taste. Makes a great pasta condiment!
Hilda Sterner says
Thank you for the review!
Kathy Fisher says
Another interesting post! I found this information fascinating!
Hilda Sterner says
Thank you!
Shala Carter says
Shlama!
I had not considered where to pick them from on the tree. Thanks for giving us the tip!
Hilda Sterner says
My pleasure, thank you so much for your comment!
Carol Race says
Hi! So fun to pick Spruce tips! I found my pesto to be a bit bitter, ideas for brightening it ?
Thanks from Alaska!
Hilda Sterner says
Hi Carol! Spruce can be a little bitter sometimes. I do mention soaking them in cold water in the FAQ section of the post. Did you soak them in cold water? That could help alleviate the bitterness. Salt and sugar can sometimes help with the bitterness in food. The recipe already calls for salt but maybe try adding a pinch of sugar? Good luck!