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
Muy deliciosa esta sopa.
Gracias por la receta. La acompañe con pan con ajo.
This recipe is perfectly seasoned. Many recipes have the right spices but not the right quantities. They wash out in cooking and the result is bland or they are unbalanced. Sara, you get an A+. Also stated many times before, this soup is absolutely beautiful and my soup looked like the picture! Yay! Thank you.
So glad you loved it!
Added hamburger, this was absolutely delicious!! Thanks for the great soup recipe, will use time and time again!
How could this possibly have 30 grams of fat per serving? There is no meat, and only 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil (21 grams total). Yes the beans have some fat, but minimal. Please explain.
This is by far the best soup I’ve made. A thousand times thank you.
Just made this for dinner and the whole family LOVED it! Thanks for yet another wonderful recipe!!
LOVE IT! Thank you! used kale instead of spinach (what I had) and it worked. Can I tell you how much we LOVE your recipes – if you can do more vegetarian/vegan recipes I would be very very very very grateful! My sister likes to point out that then I wouldn’t love your recipes so much, but I believe you can work magic!
Thanks for posting! I was going to ask about kale.
I may be making this one again soon… not sure why all these soups sound so good. The locusts starting? Signaling summer’s end fast approaching? But I have to ask… how in the world do you make a decent, not soggy-thin-centered grilled cheese sandwich? Two things I don’t think I will ever succeed with in the kitchen.. grilled cheese and pancakes. Pancakes are covered by my husband. But grilled cheese not so much because he won’t touch or go near cheese. I’ve often wondered how in the world Bob Evans gets that perfect crunchy buttery toast for the grilled cheese. Are there lots like me out there? I’ve tried low heat, medium heat, different kinds of breads, different kinds of cheeses, the end result is always a mushy, yet somehow burnt grilled cheese sandwich. I would love a post on how-to to the perfect grilled cheese lol 🙂
I just made this and it is delicous. Though truthfully, I’ve never made anything off this website that wasn’t–so kudos to both of you. Thanks for posting!
I made this last night, and it was definitely a hit.
I made changes, because I can’t look at a recipe without messing with it (sometimes disastrously). Changes were:
– more veggies (esp. spinach)
– added parsnip
– more pasta
– dried parsley instead of fresh (just what I had)
– added a cube of frozen buttermilk, because it sounded good. Necessary? Prolly not. 😉
I also didn’t have to cook it as long, but it may be because my veggies were chopped finer.
This was VERY good, I would highly recommend this! Made much more than I thought it would. <3 Thank you for another successful recipe for my home!
Also, a funny note, I was just reading other comments, and saw that I had made the same mistake as Lori did, and didn’t realize til she mentioned it! I only used one can of each type of beans. It was amazing, still, and I like more other types of veggies anyway, so I’m sorta glad I did it. 😉