Is there a way to use Kestrel within a console/desktop app without requiring the installation of the ASP.NET runtime?

[ITESMEDIA]

Hello,
We have a desktop app that has a small need to run a local HTTP server to serve some files, we would like to use the latest version of Kestrel to do this but I don't believe that Kestrel is still distributed as Nuget packages anymore.

We have added the FrameworkReference Microsoft.AspNetCore.App to our project but now running our app requires both the Desktop runtime and the ASP.NET runtime, which is not ideal.

Any suggestions on how we could ship the Kestrel assemblies as part of our app? Are we looking for trouble by attempting this?
We would like to avoid self-contained deployment for now for other reasons.

Thanks!