Minestrone is an Italian soup of mixed vegetables in a tomato-based broth, typically including a rice or pasta. For this recipe, I used tortellini (a pasta stuffed with meat or cheese) with a combination of zucchini, carrot and spinach. I love using flat green beans in minestrone but chose to take a different route with white navy beans on this one. They can be cooked ahead of time or replaced with any bean, really. Easily adaptable to what you’ve got in your fridge, this is a dish perfect for using up leftover produce.
Yields:
Serves 4
Ingredients:
- White navy beans, 1 cup (cooked or canned)
- Onion, 1 pc, diced
- Carrot, 1 pc, 1/2’’ thick slices
- Roma tomato, 2 pcs, diced
- Zucchini, 1 pc, ½’’-3/4’’ thick slices
- Spinach, 1 bunch, stems removed
- Garlic, 2-3 cloves, minced
- Parsley, few sprigs
- Olive oil, 1 tbsp.
- Tomato paste, 2 tbsp.
- Red chili flakes, 1 tbsp. (option to adjust heat)
- Bay leaf, 1 large pc.
- Water, 2L (plus more if evaporating too quickly)
- Tortellini pasta, 1lb.
What you’ll need:
- Small pot (to cook the beans)
- Knife
- Cutting board
- Colander
- Soup pot
- Wooden spoon
- Ladle
What to do:
Begin with cooking the white beans in well-seasoned water until tender, about 45-60 minutes. This step can be swapped out for canned beans if you need a quicker prep time.
Clean and cut the onion, carrot, tomato and zucchini. Remove the stems from the spinach leaves and rinse under cold running water (break larger leaves into smaller pieces). Mince the garlic and chop the parsley.
When the beans are tender begin the soup. Heat the olive oil in a soup pot. Sweat the onion and carrot until onion starts to soften. Add in the tomato and garlic and continue cooking to build the aromatics.
After a couple minutes add in the tomato paste and cook it out until it thins out and coats the veg.
Throw in the chili flakes and bay leaf, which will become fragrant, then add in the 2L of water. Bring the liquid to a boil and then lower to simmer for 20 minutes.
Halfway through, at the 10 minute mark, add in the zucchini, spinach and white beans and continue cooking.
Once the minestrone has simmered for the 20 minutes, add in the tortellini. They only need a few minutes so be careful not to overcook them. Once they are floating at the surface that means they are cooked through.
The minestrone soup is ready to enjoy.