Minestrone soup is packed with vegetables and hearty beans. This recipe may look simple, but there’s something about the flavor combination that is homey and perfect. I first had homemade minestrone when my sister in law brought it to my house for dinner and shared the recipe. I tweaked it a little and it’s one of my family’s favorite dinners. This meatless soup is still filling and makes a great main dish or side dish. Pair it with fresh crusty bread or your favorite sandwich!
Ingredients and Equipment Needed
- Heavy Soup Pot – this recipe makes a large batch, so you’ll want a nice large soup pot. My favorite is an enamel-coated cast iron pan, like this one.
- Olive oil
- Onion
- Carrot
- Celery
- Zucchini
- Fresh Garlic
- Frozen or canned green beans
- Red kidney beans
- Great Northern beans
- Diced, canned tomatoes
- Dried oregano, basil, and thyme
- Salt and pepper
- Vegetable broth
- Ditalini or other small shell pasta
- Fresh spinach leaves
- Fresh parsley
How to Make Minestrone Soup
- Sauté chopped carrots, celery, and onion.
- Add zucchini and garlic.
- Add the beans and seasonings, as well as a can of tomatoes.
- Add vegetable broth and simmer these ingredients for about 30 minutes. During this time the beans break down a little and help add body to the soup.
- Add the pasta until cooked through.
- At the very end, turn off heat and add fresh spinach and parsley.
Storing and Other Notes
- This a thick soup, which is how my family likes it. You can easily add a little more broth or water at the end to make it the perfect consistency for you!
- Store leftover soup in an airtight container in the fridge and consume within 3-4 days for best results.
- This soup freezes beautifully. Freeze individual portions for a quick weekday lunch!
Frequently Asked Questions
Totally! This soup works great to freeze in portions to heat up later. Sometimes pasta isn’t the best to freeze, but in this soup, the small amount of pasta is almost hidden- it blends in with the veggies so that works great.
Feel free to omit the pasta if you need to, minestrone is still super delicious.
Yes! This soup might even taste better when reheated the next day. Feel free to whip up a batch and enjoy for several days.
Veggie-Packed Minestrone Soup
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
- 1 onion medium, diced
- 1 carrot, large thinly sliced or finely diced
- 2 celery stalks diced
- 1 zucchini, small diced or shredded
- 4-5 cloves garlic finely minced or pressed
- 1 cup French cut green beans frozen, or used canned if preferred
- 2 15-ounce cans red kidney beans drained and rinsed
- 2 15-ounce cans white beans like Great Northern or Cannellini
- 1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes drained
- 1 ½ teaspoons oregano dried
- 1 teaspoon basil dried
- ½ teaspoon thyme dried
- 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 32 ounces vegetable broth (4 cups)
- 3 cups hot water
- ½ cup ditalini or other small shell pasta
- 4-6 cups spinach leaves fresh, loosely packed
- ¼ cup parsley fresh, minced
Instructions
- Heat a large stock pot to medium heat. Add olive oil to coat bottom of pan. Add onions, carrot, and celery. Saute 4-5 minutes, until onions start to look translucent.
- Add zucchini and garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes longer, stirring until garlic is fragrant. Add green beans, kidney and white beans, tomatoes, and seasonings and stir to combine.
- Add broth and water and bring soup to a simmer. Cover pot and simmer on low for 20-25 minutes, until carrots and celery are tender.
- Add pasta and cook until pasta is soft, 8-10 minutes.
- Remove pot from heat and stir in spinach and parsley. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste.
- Feel free to add additional broth or water for a thinner consistency.
- Season with additional salt and pepper to taste, if desired.
Questions & Reviews
Beautiful photos and a packed full of veggies recipes = awesome post!
Thanks Kim for the advice about spinach. We love spinach, so we buy the huge bags from Costco. but sometimes we don’t go through it all before it goes bad. Thank
you Sara for the recipe. I’m so excited to try it!
THANK YOU SO MUCH for posting a vegetarian recipe!! I have followed your blog for a long time, but last fall we embraced a whole foods, plant-based diet after reading/watching Forks Over Knives, Fresh, and Food, Inc. We don’t take any animal products anymore, and have completely limited what oils we eat/use after reading Fats that Kill, Fats that Heal. I used to love your recipes, but so many of them don’t fit my lifestyle anymore. When the recipes just call for olive oil I can caramelize onions with water instead, or just leave it out & we’re good…but knowing what your recipes are like in terms of ingredients you get the idea.
Anyway, just wanted to shout a huge THANK YOU for the veggie recipe. If you posted more I totally wouldn’t complain. 🙂
Just wanted to say that I tried this recipe out last night and it was absolutely delicious! I’ve been trying lots of minestrone soup recipes(looking for one that my husband and kids would like) and this is the first one that we all liked. My husband even said, “This is really good soup!” That is a miracle because he NEVER likes soup! And my 3 year and and 2 year old loved it to. Thanks to you and your fab sis in law for sharing!
I have to share a tip about fresh spinach in soup. My kids don’t like whole spinach leaves in their soup, and honestly, neither do I. I prefer them smaller. But I also don’t like chopping spinach. So I put the bag of spinach in the freezer. Mwhen I want to use it, I pull it out and crunch it in my hands a little. It breaks right up and thaws almost instantly in the soup. Instant chopped spinach. And it keeps the spinach from going bad if I don’t use it right away. So nice since spinach has that pesky habit of going bad in just a day or two.
I used a quinoa/corn based spaghetti instead of the ditalini and made it gluten free.
It is amazing the alchemy that can occur with fresh veggies in a pot, isn’t it? My toddler has just started to try soup, and getting veggies in him can sometimes be a challenge, so I’ll have to give this one a try.
I’m so excited to try this. I’ve recently been searching for a good minestrone! Thank you!!
Eating it now!! Yummy!!
I can’t wait to try this. I try doing a soup once a week at least and my family loves them. I’ve never tried a good minestrone so I am looking forward to trying this one.