Using celery leaves as an ingredient never occurred to me before I read it on the ingredient list of my grandmother’s Thanksgiving stuffing/dressing recipe. Apparently, I was underestimating the leaves that I always discarded along with the cut white bottoms of the stalk. But, grandmas are usually right, and this was no exception: the stuffing got such a boost of freshness and celery-flavor that simply sautéeing the stalks just couldn’t provide. Think of these leaves as a substitute for parsley: hearty and slightly bitter; grassy, but not overwhelming. It’s everything I love about the flavor of celery without the crunch.
Celery leaves may be hard to track down: most grocery store-celery is sold as either the hearts—no tops— or if there are some leaves present, there are only a mere few; a farmer’s market or natural food store may be your best bet at finding them. When our COVID isolation started, I began getting weekly produce boxes from my favorite local farm and I received a surplus of celery with more leaves attached than I knew what to do with. In the interest of resourcefulness, my goal was to find other ways to use up the tops as well as the bottoms in my weekly cooking.