Best Spices for Minestrone Soup

Minestrone is an Italian vegetable soup with no fixed recipe, and it is seasoned more by its ingredients than by spice jars. The savory base is onion, celery and other vegetables cooked in olive oil; depth comes from a Parmesan rind (or pancetta) simmered in the pot; and in the Genoese style, a spoonful of basil pesto goes in at the end. Garlic, black pepper and a fresh herb round it out. This page covers the job each seasoning does, with quantities from two named recipes.

At a glance

Seasoning	Job	Where it appears
Onion, leek, carrot (celery in one)	Savory vegetable base	Both recipes¹²
Olive oil	Cooking fat, richness	Ciao Italia; ATK’s pesto alternative¹²
Parmesan rind	Savory depth when the soup is made with water	Both recipes¹²
Pancetta	Alternative to the rind for depth	ATK¹
Garlic	Pungency	Ciao Italia; in pesto²³
Basil pesto	Fresh herbal finish	Both recipes; Genoa¹²⁴
Rosemary	Alternative finish to pesto	ATK¹
Parsley	Fresh green note	Ciao Italia²
Black pepper, salt	Seasoning to taste	Both recipes¹²

The vegetable base

Both recipes build on onion, leek and carrot, then add potato, zucchini, tomato and beans; America’s Test Kitchen adds celery and spinach, Ciao Italia cabbage and green beans.¹² Cook’s Illustrated’s classic version uses two small onions and two ribs of celery, finely diced.¹ No source opened here says red onion is traditional; both recipes call simply for onions.¹²

Olive oil

Ciao Italia’s Genoese minestrone uses ¼ cup of olive oil in the pot.² In our judgment, a good extra-virgin oil also makes a fine drizzle at the table.

Parmesan rind: the savory backbone

Both recipes simmer a Parmesan rind in the soup: a piece about 5 by 2 inches in Cook’s Illustrated’s, a small Parmigiano Reggiano rind “if available” in Ciao Italia’s.¹² America’s Test Kitchen explains that the rind adds complexity and depth to a soup made with water instead of stock.¹ FDA notes that MSG, the sodium salt of glutamic acid, occurs naturally in many foods, such as tomatoes and cheeses,⁵ and both are in this pot. Remove the rind before serving.¹ Ciao Italia also finishes each bowl with grated Parmigiano Reggiano.²

Pancetta as an alternative

America’s Test Kitchen offers pancetta as the other way to make up for the lack of stock, in a separate variation of its recipe.¹ Neither recipe here treats meat as essential.

Pesto: the Genoese finish

In Genoa, pesto goes into the soup. Laura Schenone, writing in Saveur, describes minestrone alla Genovese as a staple of daily life in Liguria, finished with a bit of pasta and a generous spoonful of pesto.⁴ Ciao Italia’s Genoa-style recipe stirs in 1 tablespoon of pesto and says it gives the soup its classic taste.² America’s Test Kitchen adds ¼ cup of basil pesto off the heat to its classic version too.¹

Britannica defines pesto alla genovese, named for Genoa, as basil, pine nuts, garlic, grated Parmesan and olive oil;³ Schenone’s Ligurian version lists six ingredients, adding salt, and notes that Ligurian grandmothers usually used salty pecorino, and local walnuts were common in place of pine nuts.⁴ Ciao Italia’s pesto allows pecorino, Parmigiano or Grana Padano.² For the herb itself, see basil, Genovese basil and cooking with basil.

No pesto? Rosemary and garlic

America’s Test Kitchen’s stand-in for pesto is 1 tablespoon of minced fresh rosemary mixed with 1 teaspoon of minced garlic and 1 tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil.¹ See cooking with rosemary.

Garlic, herbs and pepper

Ciao Italia’s recipe uses one minced garlic clove and a small bunch of chopped parsley in the soup; in America’s Test Kitchen’s version, garlic comes only through the pesto or its rosemary alternative.¹² Both season with salt, and America’s Test Kitchen adds ground black pepper.¹² Fresh garlic gives a cleaner flavor than garlic powder (our judgment); see garlic powder vs. garlic.

Two recipes side by side

Recipe	Aromatics	Savory depth	Herbs and finish	Other
Cook’s Illustrated, via America’s Test Kitchen¹	2 leeks, 2 onions, 2 celery ribs, 2 carrots	Parmesan rind (about 5 x 2 in)	¼ cup basil pesto, or rosemary-garlic-olive oil; salt, black pepper	Potato, zucchini, spinach, canned tomatoes, cannellini beans, water
Ciao Italia, Genoa-style²	Leeks, onion, carrots, 1 garlic clove	Parmigiano Reggiano rind; grated cheese to serve	1 tbsp pesto, parsley, ¼ cup olive oil, salt	Cabbage, tomatoes, zucchini, green beans, potatoes, borlotti beans, small pasta

These are the named recipes, not a house standard.

Classic Minestrone, Cook’s Illustrated, America’s Test Kitchen. americastestkitchen.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹
Minestrone, Genoa-style, Ciao Italia. ciaoitalia.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷
Pesto, Gregory Lewis McNamee, Encyclopaedia Britannica. britannica.com · Reference work ↩ ↩²
Glorious Pesto: The Uncooked, Economical Pride of Liguria, Laura Schenone, Saveur, 2011. saveur.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³
Questions and Answers on Monosodium glutamate (MSG), U.S. Food and Drug Administration. fda.gov · Regulator ↩

Minestrone Seasonings: Parmesan Rind, Pesto, Garlic and the Vegetable Base