The Yellow River Basin (YRB) is renowned for its environmental importance. However, the complex contradiction between protecting water resources and escalating water needs of a region’s energy and food sectors could be regarded as an obstacle to local sustainable development. In light of this dilemma, to help policymakers clearly understand the effective path of sustainable development from the interactive relationship between environmental quality and green finance, this study explored the environmental quality in the YRB with a particular focus on the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus and the potential role of green finance. It utilized provincial data that evaluated WEF and green finance separately and attributed the factors influencing the WEF under the scheme of the environmental Kuznets curve. The results revealed that the exact relationships among the WEF elements varied among the provinces of YRB but showed a clustered characteristic and a U-shaped relationship between the WEF and economic development, while green finance significantly promoted the WEF. Finally, it confirmed that industrial upgrading and green innovation, not environmental regulation, played a complementary role in stimulating environmental quality.