Pistou soup is a hearty and comforting soup that contains finely chopped summer vegetables, beans, and pasta. Big dollops of pistou sauce are stirred into it, making the soup all the more flavorful with the addition of basil, olive oil, garlic, and cheese!
I don’t think there is anything better in Provence (southeast of France) than pistou soup to celebrate the arrival of summer! This traditional soup has been made for centuries and every family makes it slightly differently. The choice of vegetables can vary but you are always in for a treat when you are served a big bowl of pistou soup.
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👪 Family recipe
This pistou soup recipe comes to me from my mamie (grandma)! As controversial as it may be (not restricting myself to summer vegetables, adding cheese into the pistou sauce), it’s my favorite version and I hope you’ll like it too. Every year we would go to France for the summer break, and every year my grandma would be waiting for us, with a big pot of pistou soup on the table and a cherry clafoutis in the oven. It was such a welcoming sight after an 8-hour flight (and not having seen each other for 11 months). My grandma was a caring and gentle woman who was quite reserved. But I could always feel how much she loved us through her food!
🌿 French pesto sauce
Pistou soup takes its name from the pistou sauce served along with the soup. Pistou, in turn, takes its name from the Provencal or Occitan verb pistare (= crush/pound). In Provence, pistou is sometimes used as a synonym for basil. Pistou is a sauce made by pounding basil, garlic and olive oil together, and it’s prepared mainly to add to this soup. This sauce (like Italian pesto sauce) should never be heated. That’s why it’s added at the end when the soup is ready.
➝ What’s the difference between pistou and pesto? The French sauce doesn’t contain any pine nuts and cheese is optional.
➝ Cheese or no cheese? There is no cheese in a traditional pistou sauce. However, French people love cheese so unsurprisingly, some started to deviate from the original recipe and add fromage râpé (grated cheese) to their pistou sauce. It brings it closer to its Genoese ‘cousin’ the pesto sauce. Some people get upset about it, but cheese is good! It makes pistou soup all the more delicious. I stick close to the pesto influences with parmesan but many use grated Emmental (Swiss cheese).
⏲️ Step by step
I am not going to lie, this is a time-consuming recipe. It’s simple enough cause all you have to do is chop every vegetable into 1 cm (½ inch) pieces and then cook them in a big pot. But boy oh boy does it take a long time to chop everything. I would advise you to enlist another pair of hands to help with the chopping or at the very least to sit at a table while you chop.
STEP 1: Make the pistou sauce
Add the basil, garlic cloves, parmesan and olive oil to a food processor. Blitz until the sauce becomes smooth. Scrape it into a serving bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until needed.
STEP 2: Cook the soup
Soak the beans overnight. Chop all the vegetables into 1 cm (½ inch) pieces. Cook the beans for 1h15. Add the carrots, celery, turnip and garlic and cook over medium-high for 15 min. Add the rest of the vegetables and cook for 15 min. Stir in the pasta and cook for 15 min. Serve the pistou soup with the sauce and some more grated cheese.
🥫 Substitutions
- pistou sauce: Instead of making the sauce yourself, you can buy a small jar of basil pesto sauce. It’s really similar to French pistou sauce. If possible, purchase pesto sauce made with olive oil and pine nuts (not the cheaper kind made with sunflower oil and cashew nuts).
- dried beans: You can use canned beans if you want to save time by not cooking dried beans from scratch. Drain 2 cans (439g – 15.5 oz net weight each) of white beans and 1 can (439g – 15.5 oz net weight each) of kidney beans, and rinse them under cold running water. Add them to the Dutch oven along with the bay leaves and water. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Add the chopped carrots, turnip, celery, and garlic, and follow the instructions written on the recipe card (step 5) to cook the soup.
- vegetables: There are many arguments about which vegetables should go into a pistou soup. Some would tell you that only summer vegetables are acceptable. My dad puts a leek instead of celery sticks, which is heresy to some (winter veggies -> bad). To me, pistou soup embodies the ‘make it with whatever you have in your fridge and your own tastes’ recipes. My grandma used to make it with whatever was ripe in her garden. As long as you serve it with big dollops of pistou sauce, your soup will be a huge success! No matter which vegetables you pick, keep in mind that root vegetables will need longer to cook.
Pistou soup
- Prep Time: 2 hours 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 2 hours
- Total Time: 4 hours 10 minutes
- Yield: 6 1x
- Category: Main course
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: French
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
This hearty and comforting Provençal soup contains finely chopped summer vegetables, beans, and pasta. Big dollops of pistou sauce are stirred into it, making the pistou soup all the more flavorful with the addition of basil, garlic, and cheese!
Ingredients
For the pistou sauce:
- 40g fresh basil leaves (1 ⅔ cups packed), from about 2 big bunches of basil
- 5 garlic cloves
- 90g grated parmesan (1 cup), plus a bit more to serve on top of the soup
- 75ml extra virgin olive oil (⅓ cup)
For the soup:
- 120g dried kidney beans (⅔ cup)
- 120g dried white beans (⅔ cup)
- 2 medium-sized carrots
- 1 turnip
- 2 celery sticks
- 5 garlic cloves
- 2 medium-sized zucchinis
- 340g green beans (12 oz or ¾ lb)
- 4 medium-sized tomatoes
- 1 big potato
- 2850 ml water (12 cups)
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 tbsp fine sea salt
- 115g dry ditalini (4 oz or 1 cup), traditionally you would break spaghetti into pieces
- 1 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
Instructions
- Soak the dried beans overnight. Place the kidney beans and the white beans in a large bowl. Add water to cover them by 7 cm (3 in) and let them soak overnight.
- Make the pistou sauce. Peel the garlic cloves and roughly chop them. Put the garlic and basil leaves in a food processor. Add the 90g (1 cup) of grated parmesan and the olive oil. Pulse, using the lowest speed, until the ingredients are well blended and the sauce reaches a spreadable consistency. I have to do it in batches because I only have a small food processor. If the pistou sauce is too thick, add some olive oil to thin it. Scrape the sauce into a serving bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and store in the fridge until needed. You can remove it from the fridge half an hour before serving the soup to bring it back to room temperature if you don’t want the sauce to be fridge-cold.
- Chop the ‘hard’ vegetables. Wash your vegetables thoroughly and dry them. Now is the time for the most time-consuming part of the recipe and I recommend you sit at a table for this. Peel the carrots and the turnip. Dice them into 1 cm (½ inch) pieces. Cut off the top and root of the celery sticks and dice them into 1 cm (½ inch) pieces. Peel the garlic cloves and finely chop them. Put everything you have chopped into a large bowl and set it aside for now. These are the ‘hard’ vegetables that will need longer cooking.
- Chop the ‘soft’ vegetables. Grab another large bowl, preferably a large mixing bowl into which you will put the chopped ‘soft’ vegetables. Trim the stems off the zucchinis and partially peel them (take off a strip here and there). Slice them in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds using a spoon. Discard the seeds (it is useful to have a small bowl next to you). Chop the zucchinis into 1 cm (½ inch) pieces. Trim the stems off the green beans and discard the stems. Slice the green beans into 1 cm (½ inch) pieces. Peel the tomatoes and deseed them. Dice the flesh into 1 cm (½ inch) pieces. Peel the potato and dice it into 1 cm (½ inch) pieces. Add all of these into the mixing bowl. Congratulations, you are done chopping and you deserve a round of applause.
- Make the soup. Drain the beans in a colander and rinse them under cold running water. Add the beans to your largest cooking pot or a Dutch oven. Add the water and bay leaves. Bring to a boil over high heat, then lower the heat to medium-low, cover with the lid, and cook the beans for 1h15. Taste one to make sure the beans are soft. Increase the heat to medium and add the ‘hard’ vegetables (carrots, turnip, celery, garlic) to the pot. Add the salt, stir well, and cover with the lid. Cook for 15 min. Stir in the ‘soft’ vegetables (zucchini, green beans, tomatoes, potato), cover with the lid and cook for 15 min. Stir in the pasta, cover and cook for 15 min, or as long as it takes for the pasta to be tender. Add the black pepper, and taste the soup. Add more salt or black pepper if necessary (be mindful that the pistou sauce will make the soup saltier). The soup should be fairly liquid, so if it’s thick, add a splash of water to thin it down.
- Serve. Stir the pistou sauce with a spoon to smoothen it. Remove the bay leaves from the soup. Ladle the soup into bowls. Serve with the pistou sauce on the side so that people can add pistou to their bowls (it’s part of the fun). It’s also common to have a bowl of grated parmesan or Swiss cheese on the side so that people can top their soup with more cheese.
Notes
You can keep pistou sauce for up to 1 week in the fridge. Make sure it is covered with olive oil to maintain its freshness.
Pistou soup freezes well; ladle any leftover cooled soup into a large freezer bag or an airtight container and freeze. It will last 3 months (or more but it’ll taste better eaten within 3 months). Heat the soup, covered, over low heat until piping hot. You might need to add some water to loosen the soup. Don’t forget to make more pistou sauce to serve with the leftover soup!
If you don’t have a food processor/blender: Traditionally, you would make your sauce using a mortar and a pestle instead of a food processor. First crush the peeled garlic cloves in a large mortar, then add the basil leaves and pound with a rotary movement. Add the cheese and keep pounding with the pestle. When it reaches a creamy consistency, slowly pour the olive oil and mix well. If your mortar is small, you might have to do it in batches.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 big bowl
- Calories: 420
Keywords: French soup, French summer recipes, mediterranean vegetable soup
Looking for more French recipes using summer vegetables? Here are some of my favorites:
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