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Basil Recipes

2 recipes with basil for weeknights, meal prep, and quick ingredient searches. Choose by time, cuisine, and what is in your kitchen.

2 recipes

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Soupe au Pistou (Provencal Summer Vegetable Soup with Basil Pistou)

🇫🇷FranceMedium

Soups

Soupe au Pistou (Provencal Summer Vegetable Soup with Basil Pistou)

Soupe au pistou is a Provencal summer vegetable soup with beans, crowned with a spoonful of pistou — the Provencal paste of basil, garlic, olive oil, and cheese. The dish comes from Provence in southeastern France, especially around Nice and the Cote d'Azur, and it is the essence of summer Mediterranean cooking: made at the peak of the season from the best vegetables at the market. Pistou is the Provencal cousin of Italian pesto; its name comes from the word for 'to pound,' just like pesto. The key difference: classic Provencal pistou traditionally contains no pine nuts — that is what sets it apart from Ligurian pesto. The soup is a close relative of Italian minestrone, since Provence borders Liguria, but the French version is finished with a big dollop of fragrant pistou that each guest swirls into their own bowl. That fresh pistou, added at the end, is what separates this from an ordinary vegetable broth. Technical keys: use only summer vegetables; mash half the beans for body without flour; never cook the pistou (heat kills the basil aroma and turns it bitter); keep the garlic in the pistou raw; and use fragrant, room-temperature basil. The classic version (per David Lebovitz) uses only water, so the vegetables shine, though vegetable broth is common. Serves 8 in about an hour, the pistou stirred in at the table, with crusty bread and a glass of Provencal rose.

60 min280 kcal8 serves

🌿Vegetarian

★4.4

Panzanella (Tuscan Bread and Tomato Salad)

🇮🇹ItalyMedium

Salads

Panzanella (Tuscan Bread and Tomato Salad)

Panzanella is a classic Tuscan salad of stale bread and ripe summer tomatoes, dressed with olive oil and red wine vinegar, with red onion and basil. It is a summer dish of central Italy (Tuscany and around), and a clear example of cucina povera — a way to use up stale bread, like its relatives Pappa al pomodoro and Ribollita. The name comes from pane (bread) and zanella (a deep bowl), reflecting its humble roots, and the dish goes back to the Middle Ages and the Tuscan countryside. A curious fact: the first panzanella had no tomatoes at all — it was made with bread, onion, and purslane, and the tomato only became the central ingredient in the 20th century. Unlike ordinary salads, panzanella is built on bread as its base: pieces of stale bread soak up the tomato juice, olive oil, and vinegar, turning soft but springy — never soggy when made correctly. The technical keys: stale bread, not fresh; soak and wring it out rather than toasting it (the authentic Tuscan way); ripe seasonal tomatoes whose juice becomes part of the dressing; red wine vinegar, not balsamic; and a 15-30 minute rest so the flavors come together. Served at room temperature as an antipasto or a light summer meal, it is summer on a plate — and best eaten the same day it is made.

30 min280 kcal4 serves

🌱Vegan⚡Quick

★4.6

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cannellini beans zucchini green beans stale bread tomatoes red onion