Because of its unique origins and the absence of a fixed recipe, minestrone varies widely across Italy depending on traditional cooking times, ingredients, and season.

[4] During this time, the main dish of a meal would have been pulte, a simple but filling porridge of spelt flour cooked in salt water, to which whatever vegetables that were available would have been added.

Spelt flour was also removed from soups, as bread had been introduced into the Roman diet by the Greeks, and pulte became a meal largely for the poor.

[4] Marcus Apicius's ancient cookbook De Re Coquinaria described polus, a Roman soup dating back to 30 AD made of farro, chickpeas, and fava beans, with onions, garlic, lard, and greens thrown in.

[5] The tradition of not losing rural roots continues today, and minestrone is now known in Italy as belonging to the style of cooking called cucina povera ('cuisine of the poor'), meaning dishes that have rustic, rural roots, as opposed to cucina nobile ('cuisine of the nobles'), or the cooking style of the aristocracy and nobles.