What Italian sauce from Genoa is made with basil and pine nuts?

What Italian sauce from Genoa is made with basil and pine nuts? The answer is pesto alla genovese, Genoa’s famous basil-based sauce.

Traditional pesto alla genovese combines Genovese basil, extra-virgin olive oil, garlic, pine nuts, and grated cheese—usually Parmesan or Grana Padano together with pecorino. Its name comes from the Genoese verb pestâ, meaning “to pound” or “crush,” referring to the traditional preparation in a marble mortar with a wooden pestle.

Although crushed herb-and-cheese pastes have ancient predecessors, modern basil pesto is relatively recent. Basil became central to the Genoese recipe in the nineteenth century, with cookbooks documenting versions in the 1850s and 1860s. Liguria’s climate and coastal agriculture helped make basil a defining ingredient of the regional cuisine.

“Pesto” can also describe other pounded sauces, so not every pesto contains basil or pine nuts. Pesto alla trapanese, for example, is a Sicilian variation associated with Trapani. Marinara and arrabbiata are tomato sauces, while Alfredo is a butter-and-cheese sauce rather than a Genoese basil pesto.