Recipe: at dinner Minestrone Soup

Recipe: at dinner Minestrone Soup Delicious, fresh and tasty.

Minestrone Soup. But you can bottle it, and that's exactly what we did. Introducing a Vegetable Minestrone Soup with nothing to hide. Minestrone is a hearty, traditional Italian soup typically made with beans, pasta and lots of vegetables.

Add more tomato paste for a thicker, more stewlike minestrone.

I also added a can of green beans, used kidney instead of cannellini beans, and used shredded spinach instead of cabbage.

Essentially, minestrone is a thick, hearty variety of vegetable soup, thanks to the addition of beans and sometimes pasta or rice.

You can cook Minestrone Soup using 20 ingredients and 4 steps. Here is how you cook it.

Ingredients of Minestrone Soup

1. It’s of olive oil.

2. You need of unsalted butter.

3. You need of large carrots, peeled and diced.

4. You need of celery, diced.

5. Prepare of yellow onion, diced.

6. It’s of garlic, minced.

7. Prepare of tomato paste.

8. You need of each oregano, dried basil.

9. It’s of ground thyme.

10. You need of fire roasted crushed tomatoes.

11. It’s of unsalted vegetable broth.

12. You need of bay leaves.

13. It’s of salt.

14. It’s of pepper.

15. You need of small potatoes, scrubbed and diced.

16. Prepare of zucchini, diced.

17. You need of yellow squash, diced.

18. It’s of unsalted cannellini beans, drained and rinsed.

19. You need of ditalini pasta (or other small shape).

20. It’s of heaping cups spinach, roughly chopped.

Tomatoes, carrots, onion, and celery are usually included, with other vegetables added at the cook's discretion.

Minestrone soup is an Italian classic!

This version is made with cannellini beans, chicken stock, cabbage, potato, zucchini, carrots, plum tomatoes, and Parmesan cheese.

Photography Credit: Elise Bauer Pancetta (optional) - since minestrone is a vegetable soup it's a perfect meal for lent.

Minestrone Soup instructions

1. In a large pot over medium heat, add the olive oil and the butter. Once its hot and the butter has melted, stir in the onions, celery and carrot with a big pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally until they have begun to soften up, about 3-5 minutes. Then stir in the tomato paste, garlic, oregano, thyme and basil. Cook about 2-3 minutes more, stirring pretty often..

2. Pour a bit of the broth in and deglaze the pan. Then the rest with the crushed tomatoes and bay leaves. Increase the heat to med-high and let this come up to a simmer. Once its simmering, stir in the beans, potatoes, zucchini and yellow squash along with the salt and pepper. Let this all simmer together until the veggies are all tender. Last, take out the bay leaves and stir in the chopped spinach and let it wilt down. Taste and add more salt, pepper, etc until youre happy with the flavor..

3. While the soup is coming to a simmer, heat a separate pot of salted water over high heat. Once its boiling, cook the ditalini pasta according to package directions, then drain and set it aside until the soup is done..

4. To serve, you can stir the cooked pasta into the soup, or if youre going to have a lot of leftovers, you can just keep them separate and add the pasta to individual bowls and pour the soup over top of it… that way the pasta won't absorb all the liquid..

So pancetta, guanciale or lard cut in cubes is completely optional, but it gives an incredible rich, intense flavor to the veggies as if they were cooked in meat stock (which by the way is also an option).

A Classic Minestrone Soup loaded with vegetables, beans, pasta and flavorful tomato broth.

Serve with a spoonful of basil pesto, parmesan and grilled bread.

It's like every week I'm posting a new soup or stew recipe!

However, if I'm being honest, minestrone is at the top of my favorite soups list.