# Hearty Minestrone Soup

Hearty Minestrone Soup — a medium recipe with 8 main ingredients, ready in about 45 min and serving 6. Check which of its ingredients are on sale at grocery stores near you.

- **Time:** 45 min
- **Serves:** 6
- **Difficulty:** medium
- **Tags:** dinner, lunch, soup, italian, vegetarian, vegan
- **Source:** https://savingrecipes.com/recipes/minestrone

## Ingredients

- 1 can white or kidney beans
- 2 carrots
- 2 celery stalks
- 1 zucchini
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 1 cup small pasta
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 1 onion
- 2 tbsp olive oil _(pantry staple)_
- Salt & pepper _(pantry staple)_

## Instructions

1. Sauté onion, carrot, celery 5 min; add zucchini for 2 more.
2. Add tomatoes, broth, and beans; simmer 15 min.
3. Add pasta, cook until tender; season well.

## Tips

- Cook the pasta separately if you want leftovers, or expect it to swell and drink all the broth overnight.
- Sweat the onion, carrot and celery slowly for a full 5 minutes before anything else goes in. That soffritto is the entire flavour base — rushing it gives you vegetable water.
- Add a parmesan rind to the pot if you have one. It's the classic Italian trick and adds a savoury depth nothing else in the recipe provides.

## Substitutions

- **White or kidney beans:** Cannellini are traditional. Borlotti, chickpeas or butter beans all work.
- **Small pasta:** Ditalini is standard. Any small shape, broken spaghetti, or rice. Gluten-free pasta works added at the very end.
- **Zucchini:** Green beans, spinach, kale, cabbage or peas. Minestrone is genuinely a use-what-you-have soup.
- **Vegetable broth:** Chicken broth if it needn't be vegetarian. Water plus a parmesan rind and good seasoning also works.

## Storage & reheating

Keeps 5 days refrigerated and freezes 3 months — freeze it without the pasta. It thickens considerably as it sits; loosen with broth or water when reheating.

## Common questions

### Is minestrone vegetarian?

As written here, yes. Traditionally it varies by region and often includes pancetta or a ham bone, so it isn't inherently vegetarian.

### Why is my minestrone bland?

Under-seasoned and under-acidic. Salt properly, then finish with a splash of red wine vinegar or lemon — beans and vegetables need acid to lift them.

### Can I use dried beans?

Yes. Soak overnight and simmer them separately until tender before adding, or they'll never soften in an acidic tomato broth.


_Photo: Katrin Morenz from Aachen, Deutschland — CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Minestrone_soup.jpg)_