How To Make Minestrone Soup? Tasty Vegetarian Italian Soup

• Food: Minestrone Soup

• Author: Alice

• Content-Type: Food Blog

A delightful variation of the traditional Italian vegetable soup is this minestrone dish. For a simple vegetarian lunch, serve it with crusty toast!

I want to bake some Christmas cookies and prepare a pot of minestrone soup today. These two seem to go together. I love nothing more than a hearty, filling pot of soup for dinner after I’ve spent the afternoon creating (and devouring!) something sweet.

I really like this soup dish since it is filling yet still light and flavorful. Its herb-flecked tomato soup is given the depth of flavor by onions, carrots, and celery, and it is thickened by starchy beans and noodles.

Green beans are added for texture, and fresh parsley and Parmesan cheese are added as a final flourish. It’s incredibly simple and wonderful, and all you need is some crusty bread to turn it into a dinner. Dessert with cookies is optional but highly advised.

INGREDIENTS FOR INGREDIENTS FOR MINESTRONE SOUP RECIPE

What you’ll need to prepare this minestrone soup recipe is as follows:

• The flavorful basis of the soup, referred to in Italian as a soffrito, is made up of the vegetable onion, carrot, and celery. Before adding the additional ingredients, you will sauté them in olive oil.
• Garlic: It gives the soup a richer, more complex flavor. To prevent burning, mix it in after cooking the celery, onions, and carrots.
• Tomatoes, diced, for a tart, sweet flavor.
• Green beans give the soup a bright color and crisp-tender texture.
• Navy beans, cannellini beans, and red kidney beans are all excellent choices for white or kidney beans.
• Use store-bought or homemade vegetable broth.
• The simple ingredients I use to make my own Italian seasoning are bay leaves, oregano, and thyme. This straightforward soup is made so much more interesting by the dried herbs.
• Consider elbows, mini-shells, orecchiette, or ditalini when thinking of small pasta. It releases its starches into the broth when cooked directly in the soup, which is my preferred method.
• For garnish, use fresh parsley! Here, too, fresh basil would be fantastic.
• Flakes of red pepper are optional and provide heat.
• And finally, the addition of Parmesan cheese elevates the soup with its salty, umami garnish.

VARIATIONS

Don’t worry if you don’t have all of these specific ingredients on hand. Minestrone can be made in a variety of different ways, as Alice Waters notes in The Art of Simple Food.

This recipe’s versatility allows you to adapt it to whatever is in season or what you have on hand. Here are some suggestions to get you going:

• Replace the celery with finely chopped fennel.
• Use diced yellow squash or zucchini in place of the green beans, or combine all three.
• Instead of tinned tomatoes in the summer, use chopped fresh Roma tomatoes.
• Near the end of cooking, stir in fresh greens like spinach or kale.
• No pasta? Substitute a grain that cooks quickly, such as barley or pearled farro.
• Cook your own beans rather than purchasing canned ones! Then, in this soup, substitute part or all of the vegetable broth with the aromatic boiling liquid.

Please share any modifications you try!

SERVING IDEAS FOR MINESTRONE SOUP

Since the pasta soaks up the broth while it rests in the leftover soup, this recipe is best when cooked immediately. I advise cooking the pasta separately and adding it to the soup just before serving if you want to prepare it in advance.

Instead of using noodles, you might increase the number of beans in the soup by one cup. When made in this manner, the soup can be stored in the refrigerator for up to four days.

Sprinkle fresh Parmesan cheese, red pepper flakes, and parsley on top of each bowl when you’re ready to eat. If you’re vegan, you are welcome to omit the cheese or top your bowl with a dollop of vegan pesto. (Non-vegans, take note: normal pesto is also a terrific topping for soup.

You can finish the meal with a side salad or simply serve the soup with some fresh crusty bread. It would be wonderful to serve this soup with the arugula, beet, and pear salads. Enjoy!

MINESTRONE SOUP

My version of the traditional Italian vegetable soup is this vegetarian minestrone. It is filling, tasty, and fresh; all it needs is crusty bread to become a meal.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 2 medium carrots, chopped
• 2 thinly sliced celery ribs and bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon sea salt, plus more to taste, dried oregano, and thyme
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 3 garlic cloves, grated
• 1 (28-ounce) can of diced tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cups white beans or kidney beans, cooked, drained, and rinsed
• 1 cup chopped green beans
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 3/4 cup small pasta, elbows, shells, orecchiette
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• Pinches of red pepper flakes
• Grated Parmesan cheese, optional, for serving

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a big pot, warm the oil over medium heat. Add the salt, pepper, onion, carrots, and celery. Cook, stirring regularly, for 8 minutes or until the veggies start to soften.
2. Add the bay leaves, oregano, thyme, tomatoes, beans, green beans, and broth. For 20 minutes, simmer with a cover on.
3. Pasta is added and cooked for an additional 10 minutes, uncovered, until tender.
4. If preferred, garnish with parsley, red pepper flakes, and parmesan after seasoning to taste.