Italian Green Minestrone with Fresh Homemade Pesto

It’s winter, and you’re craving a comforting bowl of minestrone. This time, though, you’re in the mood for something a little different.

That’s where green minestrone comes in: a vibrant, seasonal twist on the classic soup you already love.

Hello and welcome. I’m Alessia, the writer and founder behind Italy with an Italian.

Today, I’d like to show you how to make a delicious Italian green minestrone that packs just as much flavor—if not more—than its popular cousin.

This way, next time you crave minestrone, you’ll have two recipes to rotate between, making your cosy winter lunches and dinners so much tastier.

If you’re intrigued, let me show you the recipe.

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Classic Minestrone vs Green Minestrone

Before we make it, I think it’s important you get to know green minestrone, especially if you’ve never heard about this Italian recipe, but always made the classic version.

You might be asking yourself all these questions:

• Is it the same but green?
• Does it have pasta?
• Is it as tasty?
• Does it taste like green juice?

Let us compare the two, so you’ll have a clear understanding of what makes them both similar and unique.

Classic Minestrone

Name: in Italian when we say minestrone, we mean the classic one, but many of those who make many variations might simply call it minestrone classico.

Season: primarily winter but it’s also enjoyed during fall and spring.

Ingredients: uses mostly cold season vegetables such as onions, carrots, potatoes, sometimes also beets, leafy vegetables like chard, cabbage, or kale, tomatoes of course, celery, zucchini, and legumes like peas and borlotti beans. Additional ingredients like cauliflower and leeks are also common.

Serving: served with or without pasta, and is not too liquid because the rich starchy vegetables absorb a lot of it during the cooking.

Taste: it tastes rich and hearty, and has a distinct sweet and aromatic tomato taste, accompanied by earthy notes — thanks to the presence of the root vegetables and the legumes.

Green Minestrone

Name: in Italian we call it Minestrone alla Genovese because it originated in Liguria, and its most unique ingredient is pesto alla Genovese.

Season: originally a transitional dish, cooked and served during spring and fall; but nowadays enjoyed all year round.

Ingredients: uses mostly a mix of root vegetables like onions, carrots and potatoes; chard or kale, zucchini, celery and borlotti beans; the unique ingredients are green beans (fagiolino in Italian), basil, and green pesto. Optional ingredients are extra garlic, grated parmesan or its rind,  and a few cherry tomatoes.

It’s because fresh basil and green beans are more widely available in the warmer months that this recipe was born as a transitional one. But nowadays you can find frozen fagiolino and fresh basil all year round. If not, you can skip the green beans and use store bought pesto.

Serving: served with or without pasta, and is usually slightly more runny than the classic minestrone.

Taste: it tastes fresh and earthy, aromatic, and vibrant because of the mix of green and root vegetables, and the use of basil and pesto. It feels lighter than the classic minestrone, but still hearty because of the potatoes,beans, and pasta, if you choose to add the latter.

With this comparison in mind, you can clearly understand that these minestrone soups are more alike than you likely thought. The main difference is that one focuses on the rich tomato taste, while the other celebrates the fresh taste of green vegetables and basil.

A little bit of history..

If you are someone who loves knowing the story behind your dish, let me give you a few key points.

The classic minestrone is definitely the oldest one, dating back to ancient Rome. Apparently, the Romans used to prepare a similar dish with the vegetables that were available. Only later, once potatoes and tomatoes were introduced in Europe and Italy, these two were added to the dish.

On the other hand, the first written reference of green minestrone, or as Italians call it Minestrone alla Genovese, dates back to 1893 (inside the book La Cuciniera Genovese di Giobatta Ratto). This shows that this dish is a more modern one, and probably a re-interpretation of the classic minestrone. 

The author Giobatta Ratto was from Genoa, which is where both the pesto alla genovese, and the homonym minestrone alla Genovese were born. However, from what I can understand, the famous basil pesto was featured in an earlier edition of the same cookbook, published in 1863.

Even though it’s not as old as the classic minestrone, the green one is nonetheless delicious, and worthy of your time and consideration. 

While it might not be popular outside of Italy, Italians love making it. If you too like basil and pesto, I am pretty sure you are going to love green minestrone as much, if not more, than the classic recipe.

So without further ado, let me share the ingredients and how to make it.

Green Minestrone Ingredients

Please note that my ingredients vary slightly from the original recipe because I find this combination to yield the most delicious result. I will however put a note of the original ingredients, for you to choose which to use.

Onions, carrots and celery: These are both the base of Italian soffritto and vegetable stock. I personally love to start with a soffritto when making a vegetable broth, a soup, or a minestrone. This gives extra flavor, so I suggest not skipping it.

Zucchini: While zucchini are present in the classic minestrone too, I feel that they are especially suited to green minestrone because of their color — adding to the list of the green ingredients you can use to make green minestrone, but also because they impart a grassy flavor that makes this dish even tastier.

Potatoes: Potatoes are the perfect ingredient in minestrone and soups when you want to thicken them naturally, as well as add a starchy flavor. Plus, potatoes and green beans are a match made in heaven. Italians love them so much that we like to make a side salad with those two.

Spinach (the original recipe uses Swiss chard): I like to use spinach over swiss chard because they are easier to find, plus they are sweeter, which aids the overall balanced flavor of this recipe. Swiss chard can, on the other hand, be quite bitter.

Green Beans: Fagiolino, as we call them in Italy, are the essence of this recipe, along with the pesto, of course. These are, however, not available fresh in Winter. You can, however, use frozen green beans. They should be easy to find in the freezer section of your local supermarket. Just make sure the ingredients are just green beans.

Cannellini Beans (the original recipe uses borlotti beans): I find cannellini beans lighter and also starchier, which is the perfect combination to add to this recipe. They add an especially delicious buttery taste, while borlotti are richer and heavier.

Basil (optional): This is optional if you are using the pesto. But feel free to add it if you’d like its taste to be even stronger.

Green Pesto or Pesto alla Genovese: The first time I made this recipe I used this Barilla Pesto, and it was delicious. But once I made my healthy pesto recipe, I never looked back, and this recipe is so much fresher and delicate with the use of homemade pesto. 

If you like a more robust pesto flavor, but want to make it yourself at home, I will give you a recipe for that too.

Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil: Like I always say, almost no Italian recipe would be complete without using this ingredient.

Vegetable stock: I am using organic vegetable stock cubes, but you can make your own vegetable stock with just carrots, onions, celery, and water.

Salt and pepper: Feel free to use either black or white pepper; I think the latter goes really well here.

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Exact Quantities:

• 3 medium potatoes
• 1 medium onion
• 2 medium carrots
• 2 large zucchini
• 2 stalks celery
• 400 gr green beans or fagiolino
• 200 gr cannellini beans (you can double these, if you want more protein)
• 150 gr baby spinach leaves
• 2 cube vegetable stock
• 1.8 litres water 
• 3 to 6 tablespoons of basil pesto (see variations)
• rustic bread or pasta
• Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt and pepper

Equipment Needed:

• chopping board
• chopping knife
• vegetable peeler
• large bowl
• silicone spoon
• teaspoon
• tablespoon
• large soup pot

Ingredients for Homemade Pesto:

If you decide to make your own pesto, these are the ingredients you need. It makes one large jar, enough for this minestrone.

• 100 gr fresh basil leaves (or 4 large handfuls)
• 7 tablespoons EVOO (I do 4 tablespoons oil and 8 tablespoons water for my healthy version)
• 40 gr grated parmesan
• 30 gr pine nuts (I skip these for my healthy version)
• Pinch of salt
• 1 clove garlic (if you don’t like it or cannot it, you can skip it; I do that too and it’s still delicious)

PS: If you add the pine nuts, you might need to add more oil or water. Just do it one tablespoon at a time, blend, and check the consistency.

How To Make Italian Green Minestrone With Pesto (Minestrone alla Genovese)

Let me share my easy recipe and everything you need to know to nail it your first time. I am sure you will love it!

Notes Before You Start

1. If you are using homemade vegetable broth, make sure to prepare that in advance.
2. If you are using dry beans, make sure to soak them overnight, rinse them and cook them in advance.
3. As for the homemade pesto, you can make that while your minestrone cooks, or in advance, whichever way you prefer. 
4. If you plan to cook it with pasta, make sure to use an extra litre of vegetable stock for every 100 gr pasta.

How to Make Homemade Pesto

Let’s start with the homemade pesto, which you can make the day of, the day before, or even weeks in advance, and freeze. Feel free to double or triple the quantity, and store for use with pasta and panini.

If you decide to make your own pesto, here’s how to do it. Above, you’ll find the ingredients for the original recipe and the variations for my healthy recipe.

All you have to do is blend all the ingredients together. You can blitz to achieve a rough coarse consistency, or you can blend for a longer time until your pesto is silky smooth.

I use the entire jar of my healthy version in this green minestrone, because it’s nice and light. It’s about 100 grams of pesto.

However, if you are using a richer store-bought pesto, I suggest using up to 6 tablespoons.

How to Make Italian Green Minestrone

Wash, peel and chop all your vegetables, starting with the onions, the carrots, and the celery.

Add those to a pot with a drizzle or two of extra virgin olive oil, lower the heat, and leave to sauté for 5 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare your potatoes into small medium pieces.

Next, wash and cut your zucchini in the same size as the potatoes. You can peel them or not, whichever you prefer. Unless these are your home garden zucchini, I would peel them, as the skin might be a little hard.

You also want to prepare your green beans, cutting them into smaller pieces – 1 inch or 3 cm long.

As you cut the rest of the vegetables, you want to add them to your pot and leave to sauté with the rest.

If you are using canned beans, you want to rinse them to remove the extra starch.

Proceed by adding the beans to the pot and let everything cook for another few minutes.

You can now add the vegetable stock with all the water, season, and mix well.

Cover with a lid, lower the heat, and leave to simmer for at least 50 minutes.

After that time has passed, you can rinse and add your spinach.

If you want to cook the pasta, now is the time to add it, but make sure you have enough liquid in your pot.

If you are going to skip the pasta, you can add the spinach and the optional extra basil now.

Then, mix in the pesto, and take your minestrone off the heat.

Serve with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, optional grated parmesan cheese, and a side of crusty bread.

Enjoy.

Variations & Storage Tips

This recipe is really easy and very unlikely for you to mess up. However, here are a few extra tips to help you make it.

Try these variations:

If you are vegan: use vegan parmesan instead. Since I am dairy intolerant, I like to use Parveggio parmesan, even in my pesto, and the result is still yummy.

Another option could be to add nutritional yeast.

If you want to follow the original recipe: simply replace cannellini beans with the same quantity of borlotti beans, and do the same for the spinach but use swiss chard instead.

If you want it to be extra cheesy: add a small rind of parmigiano reggiano cheese and let it simmer with the rest of the ingredients.

If you’d like to add more vegetables: adding a few cherry tomatoes and peas is a popular choice, but some also add cauliflower, pumpkin, and even eggplant. You can try one or more of those.

If you don’t want to add the pesto do this: some versions of the original recipe use the ingredients of pesto right in the minestrone. This involves adding the garlic, the basil leaves, and the parmesan rind while the minestrone simmers, and then you serve it with extra olive oil to achieve the same taste. 

I also found a Genovese version that omits the pesto while cooking,  and then adds chopped basil and garlic mixed with olive oil directly into the plate.

How to store your Green Minestrone:

I like to serve it immediately, and store the rest in the fridge to be eaten within 3 days. This holds whether it has pasta or not.

However, when the minestrone has pasta, I suggest you don’t reheat it in the microwave. It’s best to do so in a pot, and you might need to add some extra vegetable stock or water.

I have also blended my green minestrone and loved it with crusty bread. I find doing that makes it even tastier because it amalgamates the flavors even further. Personally, I love the consistency of silky soups over chunky minestrones.

Finally, you can also freeze this minestrone into individual portions, and then take it out and reheat when you are ready to enjoy it. The texture might become less smooth but the taste will be as delicious. Ideally, minestrones without pasta work best for freezing.

More Hearty Italian Dishes

I hope you try this recipe and love it as much as I do. I personally prefer it to the regular minestrone because it’s lighter and has a fresh taste I adore.

If you’d like more easy Italian recipe ideas, I share my favorite recipes inside my newsletter. It’s called Buona Settimana, and arrives in your inbox every Sunday. It’s like chatting with your Italian friend about food, fashion, travel, and life. You can join through one of the sign up boxes in this post. I’d love to see you there.

In the meantime, here are more delicious recipes on the blog:

If you love green soups, you have to try my quick and easy Creamy Broccoli Soup.

Nothing tastes as good as a homemade soup with a side of homemade bread. If you don’t like adding pasta to your soups, you can enjoy it with bread. And if you love both, you do you! Here’s My Favorite Italian Homemade Bread Recipe. The loaf version goes perfectly with minestrone and soups.

And if cosy pasta is your jam, how about this Italian Sausage & Beans Pasta Soup no one is sharing?

That’s it for this post.

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A presto,
Alessia