Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Trofie al Pesto Genovese
Hand-twisted pasta with true Genoese pesto, plus the potatoes and green beans that Liguria insists belong in the pot.
Italian (Ligurian) · easy · serves 4
prep 20 min · cook 20 min
~885 cal · 36g protein · 143g carbs · 20g fat · 17g fiber · 6g sugars · 3g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Genoa treats pesto with the seriousness other cities reserve for wine. The city has effectively written the rules: small-leaved Genovese basil grown in the coastal sun, a marble mortar and wooden pestle rather than a blade, pine nuts, garlic, good Ligurian olive oil, and hard cheeses from particular hills, all ground by hand into a bright green sauce. Trofie, short hand-rolled twists of pasta, are its classic Ligurian partner.
The detail the wider world quietly dropped is the trinity. In Liguria the pasta is boiled in the same pot as sliced potatoes and green beans, so the pesto coats all three at once, the soft potato and the crisp-tender beans as much as the pasta. A plate of trofie al pesto without them would strike a Genoese cook as oddly bare.
Everything about it is designed to protect the basil's fresh, raw perfume: no cooking of the sauce, no heat beyond the warmth of the just-drained pasta, a spoonful of the starchy cooking water to loosen it. It is summer on a plate, and Liguria remembers exactly how it should be made.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
3 packed cups fresh basil leaves
1/3 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup Parmigiano, grated
1/4 cup Pecorino, grated
1 lb trofie (or casarecce) pasta
2 waxy potatoes, small dice
1.5 cups green beans, cut
1 small clove garlic
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil (Ligurian if you can)
as needed coarse salt (for the mortar and the pasta water)
Instructions
1
Pound (or pulse, briefly) the garlic and a pinch of coarse salt, then the pine nuts, then the basil in additions, cold and fast keeps it emerald.
2
Work in the cheeses, then stream in the oil. Never let it get warm; pesto is a raw sauce.
3
Boil the potatoes in well-salted water 5 minutes; add the pasta, and the green beans for the pasta’s last 4 minutes.
4
Drain, keeping a cup of starchy water. Off the heat, fold everything through the pesto, loosening with splashes of that water.
5
Serve immediately. The potato edges dissolve into the sauce, that’s the Ligurian magic.
Genoese tradition, trinity included.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Liguria. Pesto is younger than it sounds. Basil pesto appears in Genoese cookbooks only in the 1850s and 1860s, and the basil itself has held a protected designation since 2005. It is pounded in a marble mortar with a wooden pestle, and the pasta under it is traditionally trofie or trenette with potato and green beans.
🗺️
Italy. A good deal of the Italian pantry is younger than the Renaissance. Tomatoes, peppers, beans, maize and squash all crossed from the Americas after 1500 and took generations to be trusted, which is why the earliest printed Neapolitan pizza was a sweet one. The older divide is fat: butter and lard through the north, olive oil down the length of the peninsula.
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Europe. A surprising amount of European cooking is under five hundred years old. Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, maize, beans and chocolate all crossed from the Americas after 1492, and none of them was trusted quickly: the potato took most of the eighteenth century to be accepted as food rather than animal fodder across much of the north.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
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Good to know
Storing it: Best fresh. Leftovers keep 2 days refrigerated; loosen with a splash of water or oil as you reheat so they do not clump.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Trofie al Pesto Genovese?
Hand-twisted pasta with true Genoese pesto, plus the potatoes and green beans that Liguria insists belong in the pot.
Where does Trofie al Pesto Genovese come from?
Trofie al Pesto Genovese is a Italian (Ligurian) dish from Liguria, Italy.
Can Trofie al Pesto Genovese be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Trofie al Pesto Genovese recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Trofie al Pesto Genovese safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Trofie al Pesto Genovese take to make?
About 40 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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