20+ Creative Garlic Scape Recipes to Use Your Harvest

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It’s scape season! If you’re overloaded with these little delicacies, find out exactly how to make the most of them. Learn how to use garlic scapes with 20+ recipes, including grilling, roasting, pickling, fermenting, and more.

bowl of garlic scapes fresh from the farmers market.

I first learned about garlic scapes when I started working at a local farmers market. Before that, it never even crossed my mind that you could grow your own garlic!

Once I started working on farms, I started looking forward to this special harvest. I remember harvesting so many scapes on one farm that my hands smelled like garlic for days.

Now, I truly look forward to garlic scape season every year. They have such a delicious flavor and are one of the crops I’m most excited to see either in my garden or at the market. They’re a sure sign summer is on its way!

What are garlic scapes?

When I work at the farmers market during scape season, I see two responses from customers about scapes. They’re either thrilled for scape season and know exactly what they are, or they ask, “What are those things?!”

These curly green stalks are actually the flower stem and bud of hardneck garlic plants.

They emerge around late spring or early summer every year. If you’re growing garlic for the bulbs, you need to remove these flowers to send as much plant energy as possible to the developing garlic bulbs.

If the garlic scapes are allowed to flower, the plant’s energy is directed to flowering and growing seeds, which stunts the bulbs.

By removing the garlic flower and its stem, we get a delicious crop we can enjoy right away in early summer while also helping the plant focus on developing big, flavorful garlic cloves. Think of it as doubling the harvest!

They have a texture similar to green beans or asparagus, but with a garlicky flavor ideal for using in so many different recipes.

Learn how to preserve garlic scapes to enjoy all year long. They’re worth the effort!

What to Do with Garlic Scapes

Just like your favorite herbs or spring veggies, there are countless ways to use this special ingredient. These are just some of my favorite options to try!

Compound Butter

If you have a food processor, you can make homemade garlic scape butter in no time at all! Plus, there are so many ways to customize the butter to make it your own. I love to add lemon zest, just like my chive blossom butter!

Tip: Scape butter freezes really well, too!

Roasted Garlic Scapes

Who doesn’t love roasted veggies? Roasting garlic scapes makes them soft and tender while also concentrating that delicious garlic flavor.

You just need a little olive oil and salt to help them tenderize in the oven, and you can use them on salads, in pasta dishes, or even scrambled with eggs.

Scape Biscuits

My cheddar garlic scape biscuits are flaky and cheesy, perfect for serving with a hearty breakfast or a warm bowl of soup.

Garlic Scape Powder

This powder is made from dehydrated scapes, which are blended into a fine powder you can use in place of garlic powder in any recipe.

This is one of my favorite ways to preserve scapes, and it’s easy, too!

Learn how to make garlic scape powder here.

Garlic Scape Salt

This is technically a type of dehydrating because you blend the scapes and salt together, then dry them all the way out. This will leave you with a seasoning salt that adds a delicate scape flavor any time of the year.

Scape Pizza

The Art of Natural Living has a fantastic recipe for garlic scape pizza. This is an easy way to use your garlic scape harvest right away.

Grilling

If roasting scapes don’t develop browning enough, grill them!

Grilling vegetables is an excellent way to develop browning and charring, which leaves that distinct, delicious, smoky flavor we all know and love.

Follow these tips from Homemade and Yummy to make the best grilled scapes this year!

Scape Dip

Looking for the perfect side dish or appetizer before the big game?

We love making sour cream and chive dip, but if it’s scape season, try substituting garlic scapes for green onion and experience a very similar dip that adds a whole new twist.

Pickled Garlic Scapes

Modern Harvest has recipes for both quick pickled dill scapes and a canning recipe to preserve them for later. This is one of my favorite ways to preserve scapes!

Stir Frying

I love adding seasonal veggies to my stir fries and scapes are a perfect addition! Their mild garlic flavor goes well with salad turnips, snap peas, and other fresh veggies.’

Fermenting

Culture the good bacteria on the scapes in a salt-water brine to make them a naturally probiotic treat! Learn more about fermenting scapes here.

Scape Soup

If you have a garden of your own and have garlic planted, you might be lucky enough to get a huge harvest of scapes. What do you do when you have a whole fridge drawer full of raw garlic scapes? Make soup, of course!

Scape Vinegar

I love infusing scapes in vinegar! Choose a mild vinegar like unseasoned rice white or white balsamic to let the mild flavor of garlic scapes really shine through.

Let them soak for 2-3 weeks, strain out the scapes, and use the vinegar in your salad dressings and any other recipe!

Garlic Scape Pesto

This garlic scape walnut pesto from Urban Farm and Kitchen has all the herby, garlicky flavor you love without having to splurge on pricey pine nuts! You’ll blend a mixture of herbs, extra-virgin olive oil, walnuts, lemons, and scapes until completely incorporated.

Pro Tip: To make pesto a little cheaper, I often use Asiago instead of parmesan cheese. I usually make a double batch, scoop the extra into an ice cube tray, and then pop it in the freezer. Then, whenever I want to add some flavor to fresh pasta or other dishes, I simply pop a cube of pesto out and add it right to the pan.

Garlic Scape Kraut

Kraut is such an easy entry into the world of fermenting, and it’s much cheaper than the live kraut at the store! I usually make this spicy garlic sauerkraut, but you can easily replace the raw garlic with 2-3 scapes.

This garlic scape sauerkraut with red cabbage from The Wild Gut is a great option too. Check for fresh cabbage at your local farmer’s market!

Scape Hummus

Nothing goes better with hummus than garlic.

Though less pungent than the bulbs, garlic scapes contain a very similar taste and melds very well with the chickpeas, sesame oil, and lemon juice in this garlic scape hummus from Joybilee Farm.

Garlic Scape Risotto

This sausage and garlic scape risotto really looks delicious! I can just imagine the fresh pops of garlic with the savory sausage.

Frittata

Celebrate the early spring harvest with peas, scapes, mushrooms, and more in this early summer frittata from the Crumb blog.

Dill Scape Relish

This dill scape relish is a delicious addition to your summertime brats and hot dogs! Get the full recipe from Dish in the Kitchen to make your own.

Bread

Fold scapes into bread dough the next time you’re whipping up a batch of homemade bread. Pro tip: it goes great with a hard salty cheese like parmesan.

This garlic scape sourdough bread would be perfect to serve with some of the other recipes above!

Garlic Bread

Instead of regular garlic, use scapes for the garlic flavor! This garlic scape garlic bread would be perfect for your next spaghetti night.

Aioli or Mayo

Add scapes to a batch of mayo or aioli for the most amazing garlicky sandwiches ever! This simple garlic scape aioli is a great place to start.

Garlic Scape Pasta

You can either sauté your scapes to add to pasta or actually add the cooked scapes to your homemade pasta! This lemon garlic scape pasta is a simple, light meal perfect for garlic lovers.

FAQs

Fresh, tender scapes can easily be sauteed, grilled, pickled, roasted, and much more. The entire scape is edible, although the main part that is eaten is the stem. Just watch out for older, woody scapes, as they will be quite unpleasant to eat.
You can check the very end of the scape where it’s been snapped. If it’s dry and has little white spots, it’s probably quite woody. Snap off the fibrous tip until you only have soft, tender stalks.

Fresh scapes have a pale green color at the end. You can also snap off a bit of the stem to see if it’s fresh. If it doesn’t snap neatly, it’s old. Old scapes are not fun to eat!

Yes! Garlic scapes are completely edible raw; they just have a sharp garlic flavor that can be a little overwhelming. This is why they’re typically pickled, processed, or sauteed instead.

The entire scape is edible, including the flower! However, freshness can be an issue. If the flower is opening at all, the stems are likely becoming firm and woody. The flowers are delicious in vinegar, butter, and dip, but I typically make these towards the end of the season when the stalks firm up.

If you want to make pesto or many of the recipes above, you’ll want very tender stems. Many people remove the pale flower head since it doesn’t have quite the same texture or flavor.

If you enjoy this post, please leave a comment or ask a question below! I’d love to hear what you think and hear about your own experiences.

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