Best Spices for Minestrone Soup

Minestrone gets most of its flavor from what’s in the pot, not from spice jars. The base is onion, leek, carrot and other vegetables. The secret weapon is a Parmesan rind simmered in the soup, which gives a water-based minestrone real depth. And in Genoa, the soup gets finished with a generous spoonful of basil pesto. There’s no fixed recipe, so two named versions show how the seasonings play out.

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 start with onion, leek and carrot, then add potato, zucchini, tomato and beans. America’s Test Kitchen adds celery and spinach; Ciao Italia adds cabbage and green beans. Cook’s Illustrated’s classic version uses two small onions and two ribs of celery, finely diced.¹ Red onion gets called traditional sometimes, but no source we opened says so. Both recipes just call for onions.¹²

Olive oil

Ciao Italia’s Genoese minestrone uses ¼ cup of olive oil in the pot.² A good extra-virgin oil also makes a nice 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 says the rind adds complexity and depth to a soup made with water instead of stock.¹ FDA notes that the glutamate in MSG occurs naturally in foods like tomatoes and cheeses,⁵ and both are in this pot. Fish the rind out before serving. Ciao Italia also finishes each bowl with grated Parmigiano Reggiano.²

Pancetta as an alternative

In a separate variation, America’s Test Kitchen offers pancetta as the other way to make up for skipping stock.¹ Neither recipe 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. She notes that Ligurian grandmothers usually used salty pecorino, and that local walnuts often stood in for pine nuts.⁴ Ciao Italia’s pesto lets you use 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 puts one minced garlic clove and a small bunch of chopped parsley in the soup. In America’s Test Kitchen’s version, garlic comes in only through the pesto or its rosemary alternative.¹² Both season with salt, and America’s Test Kitchen adds ground black pepper. Fresh garlic tastes cleaner than garlic powder; 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 two 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
Minestrone, Genoa-style, Ciao Italia. ciaoitalia.com · Publication ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵
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