Martha Stewart's One-Ingredient Upgrade Makes Minestrone Soup Irresistible

Like many great foods, we have peasants to thank for minestrone soup. In ancient Rome, the poor utilized leftovers in whatever way possible, leading to the creation of one of the world's great soups. There are as many recipes as there are nonne. Every Italian grandma has their own way of using what's in the pantry to make this. And, just like how tomatoes were introduced much later in the soup's life, Martha Stewart adds one ingredient to amp up the flavor: Pesto.

In a recent post on Instagram, Stewart ran through her minestrone method. Once the soup is all cooked and plated, she tops it with a scoop of homemade basil pesto, then the traditional heap of shredded parmesan. The aromatic sauce is a quick and easy way to bring a fragrance and flavor to the soup from all the shredded basil, pine nuts, and parmesan. If you spent the summer making pesto from scratch with basil from your garden and froze it in ice cube trays, use a cube in your bowl of soup to not only enhance the flavor, but cool your soup if it's too hot!

Martha isn't the first to put pesto in minestrone. In Genoa, the birthplace of the aromatic paste, you can find bowls of the soup with dollops of pesto called minestrone Genovese. The Genovese were using this one-ingredient upgrade (made from multiple ingredients) to make their own minestrone soup irresistible for centuries.

Adding a spoonful of pesto works with any soup, not just minestrone. We recommend adding it to tomato soup. The parmesan in the sauce is naturally high in MSG, strengthening the umami of the tomato. The basil and garlic add flavors that complement the tomato well. The olive oil adds silkiness and more fat to carry those flavors to your taste buds. It's also the basis of our Pesto Pasta Soup. The parmesan takes the simple chicken broth to savory levels that feel like you spent hours cooking. All these soups use the paste at the very end. You don't have to cook it in, just stir it in. The basil is best fresh; it's shredded so the leaves' aromatic oils are already unlocked. Try it in your next soup, home-cooked or store-bought, for an extra flavorful meal!