Minestrone soup recipe

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This quick, cheap and easy minestrone soup recipes uses leftover or frozen veg and cooked meat with pasta and beans in a tomato stock.

Minestrone soup
(Image credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
  • healthy
  • Nut-free
  • healthy
Serves4
SkillEasy
Preparation Time10 mins
Cooking Time20 mins
Total Time30 mins
Five A DayOne
Cost RangeCheap
Nutrition Per PortionRDA
Calories190 Kcal10%

A quick, chunky soup that will warm and fill you up at lunch or dinner time.

This minestrone soup only takes 30 minutes to make and the result is a lovely, satisfying soup for four. It's so chunky and filling, with the addition of orzo pasta, that it makes a good weeknight dinner. If you have any leftovers, you can always have them for lunch the following day. It's originally Italian - the word minestrone simply means thick soup. And there's no set recipe for a 'traditional' minestrone soup - it changes according to what's in season and personal taste. If you're cooking for vegetarians, simply leave out the meat, or add in some extra chopped veg. Feel free to use frozen vegetables to make it cheaper, or swap out-of-season items in-season substitutes, which will be cheaper and more nutritious.

Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 small onion, peeled and chopped
  • 500g carton passata (tomato sauce)
  • 150g can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
  • 60g (2oz) orzo (rice-shaped) pasta
  • 1 vegetable or chicken stock cube
  • Good pinch of dried oregano
  • About 125g (4oz) cooked vegetables, eg, carrots and parsnips, chopped
  • About 100g (3½oz) cooked meat — we used gammon
  • Handful of cooked cabbage or kale
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper

WEIGHT CONVERTER

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Method

  1. Put the oil and onion in a large pan, and cook for about 5 mins until the onion is soft.
  2. Add the passata, plus 500ml (16fl oz) water, the beans, pasta, a crumbled stock cube and the oregano.
  3. Bring to the boil, simmer for 10 minutes. Add the chopped vegetables and cooked meat. Heat through and serve topped with shredded, cooked cabbage that’s also been heated through, in a microwave. Season and serve.

Top tip for making minestrone soup

You can use bacon or lardons, and add a can of tomatoes instead of passata, and substitute rice for the pasta.

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Jessica Dady
Food Editor

Jessica Dady is Food Editor at GoodtoKnow and has over 12 years of experience as a digital editor, specialising in all things food, recipes, and SEO. From the must-buy seasonal food hampers and advent calendars for Christmas to the family-friendly air fryers that’ll make dinner time a breeze, Jessica loves trying and testing various food products to find the best of the best for the busy parents among us. Over the years of working with GoodtoKnow, Jessica has had the privilege of working alongside Future’s Test Kitchen to create exclusive videos - as well as writing, testing, and shooting her own recipes. When she’s not embracing the great outdoors with her family at the weekends, Jessica enjoys baking up a storm in the kitchen with her favourite bakes being chocolate chip cookies, cupcakes, and a tray of gooey chocolate brownies