Fresh Italian Broad Beans Recipe (Fava Bean Minestra)

This fresh broad bean recipe is a celebration to early Spring, in Italian named Minestra Primavera. This fresh fava beans vegetable stew is made also with fresh peas, lettuce, and artichokes. The fresh Spring vegetables are piled in layers and cooked under lettuce leaves to preserve the produce's green color. These bright green beans are a great source of protein and a perfect alternative for a vegan or vegetarian diet.

Jump to:

• How to buy, cook and eat them
• Ingredients
• Instructions
• How to serve it
• Fava bean in history
• Pairing for a Spring Picnic
• More Side dishes
• 📋 Fresh Italian Broad Beans Recipe (Fava Bean Minestra)

Also known as fava beans, those large beans are in season from Spring to Summer months.

They have been used since the bronze age and during the Roman Empire they even made bread with their flour.

If fresh, they can be eaten raw by removing them from their pod and peeling the outer skins.  

An article published on the New York Times gives some interesting information:  When It Comes to Fava Beans, Naked Is Best

Fave beans have been historically a peasant food and a source of proteins during famines. 

Since the Roman Empire, any farm or home with a vegetable patch would have a plant of broad beans. 

Grabbing a broad bean and eating it while talking is expected when visiting an Italian farmer.

If you are a special guest, you will also get a piece of cheese or a slice of salami to eat with it.

How to buy, cook and eat them

You can buy fresh broad beans during the warmer months when they are in season. 

To choose them, ensure the pod is green and firm. 

Fava beans have double plodding, the outer pod and the outer skin.

Remove them from the pod, and remove the outgrowth that connects the bean to the pod and the skin. 

You can leave the skin, but it can be bitter and tough. 

The inner beans instead are sweet and tender.

You can use dried broad beans during the colder months by soaking them in water overnight.

Fresh or dried broad beans can be boiled in salted water for 5 minutes; they can be served as a fava bean salad, added to the Nicoise salad

Sauteed fava beans can be eaten as a minestra, mixed with pasta dishes, or added to a risotto.

The fresh beans can also be cooked as a vegetable stew with bacon and fresh herbs, as is in this simple recipe.

Ingredients

• fresh green peas
• fava beans, broad beans
• artichokes
• small lettuce head
• bacon, optional
• onion
• olive oil
• salt

It is important for this recipe that all vegetables are fresh.

If you don't want to spend too much time cleaning them, you can find some farm stands that clean them at the market.

In Italy, you often find broad beans, peas and artichokes already cleaned and ready to be cooked.

Instructions

Preparing the ingredients

1. Prepare all the vegetables 
2. Put aside four lettuce leaves and cut the lettuce into slices 
3. Clean the peas 
4. Clean the broad beans 
5. Clean and cut the artichokes into slices 

How to clean an artichoke

Cleaning artichokes is very easy, only a little time-consuming. Make sure you wear plastic gloves as artichokes stain:

1. Remove the hard outer leaves until the yellow flesh appears.
2. Then remove all the dark green tops of the leaves, which have no meat, and end with spikes.
3. Last, you peel off the green layer of the stem

5. Immediately immerse the artichokes in water and lemon; otherwise, they will turn black

6. Cut the artichokes into quarters
7. Cut the internal leaves

8. Cut them into thin slices

Cooking the minestra

The cooking process of this minestra is very simple:

1. In a casserole, stir-fry one onion and the bacon 
2. Cover with a layer of lettuce and season 
3. Add a layer of broad beans and season 
4. Add a layer of peas and season 
5. Add a layer of artichokes, season, and add 2 cups of water 
6. Lay on top the four lettuce leaves; they will keep the color of the vegetable green 
7. Cover with a lid and simmer for 40 minutes 
8. When ready, remove the top lettuce leaves 
9. Serve

How to serve it

This fava bean recipe can be eaten warm or at room temperature, a perfect Spring starter for the unpredictable weather during this time of the year.

It can be served as a starter or as a side dish to meat like Arrosticini Lamb, crown roast of lamb, easy chicken spiedini, or roasted chicken. 

I like to eat it as a main dish with some crusty bread and matured cheese on the side or accompanied by Italian cheese bread or cheese spinach stuffed bread rolls.

It is an excellent vegan meal if you omit crispy bacon, as fava beans are a great source of protein.

It can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days.

​Even if suitable for freezing, it is best eaten fresh.

Fava bean in history

Broad beans have a long history as a protein source for the poor and as hallucinogenic for thinkers.

They have been used in many cultures, starting with our Neolithic ancestors as they discovered that legumes were a worthy replacement for meat.

So fava bean puree became an essential part of their diets.

Slaves from Middle Eastern ate them as polenta, and Romans would use them to make bread (flat bread for the poor).

We also found various gourmet recipes in the oldest recipe book from the Roman Empire: De re Coquinaria by Apicio.

Broad beans were even offered to divinities and were believed to have hallucinogenic and aphrodisiac properties by philosophers such as Pythagoras and Plato. 

Pythagoreans forbid themselves from eating broad beans because they believed the plant's hollow stem would allow the souls of the deceased to return to earth.

Flour was made from dried broad beans and mixed with cereal flour to make bread, polenta, and soups.

A dish made from fava beans and panic (faba et panic mixto) was mentioned in a Lucchese document from 765 as a food given to the poor as alms three times a week.

The "broken broad beans" recipe suggested in the 14th century in the Neapolitan Liber de coquina is a polenta made from broad beans.

It's a simple and inexpensive dish commonly eaten by peasants and sometimes called "macco."

The original recipe is very basic, but a second version includes spices and sugar to make it richer.

In our current time, a famous line from the movie Silence of the Lamb proposes to serve them with liver and Chianti: "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."

Pairing for a Spring Picnic

These are my favorite dishes to serve for a Spring Picnic

More Side dishes

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