I love a hearty, veggie filled soup, especially one that will last all week in the fridge!
I used to be massively intimidated by minestrone soup, thinking it sounded really complicated. Turns out, I was massively wrong and it’s now one of my favourite soups! Traditionally it has bacon or something similar in it which I personally skip out of personal preference, but I’ve included it in the recipe below incase your tastebuds are more open-minded than mine!
As always, this is a BIG pot of soup so if you don’t want 10 serves make sure you halve the recipe. You can always freeze any extra vegetables to use in a future batch.
Ingredients
Vegetables:
1 pack Coles chicken vegetable soup mix
OR
1 celery stick (diced)
2 carrots (diced)
1 zucchini (diced)
1 leek (diced)
1 onion (diced)
1 potato/sweet potato (diced)
Everything else:
olive oil
2 teaspoons crushed garlic/2 garlic cloves
**300g diced bacon - optional
2 800g cans diced/cruched tomatoes
2 cans mixed beans (or you can pick the beans you like)
2L water
Chicken stock powder (enough to season sufficiently)
mixed herbs
2-3 bay leaves
1 cup risoni
1/2 cup grated parmesan
handful of spinach or frozen equivalent
Method
Prep your veggies.
Grab a large pot and put it over a medium heat. Add olive oil, garlic, diced vegetables and bacon if using. Saute for a few minutes until the vegetables start to soften and the smells are released.
Add in the rest of the ingredients except for the risoni, parmesan and spinach.
Bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer for 30-60 minutes. You can leave this as long as an hour and a half and it’ll be totally fine.
Add the risoni and simmer for a further 10 minutes, stirring regularly.
Finally, turn off the heat and add the spinach and parmesan. Stir frequently to disperse and so the spinach wilts/defrosts.
Serve with a little extra parmesan!
Keep in mind that if you do keep this in the fridge the pasta will soak up a little more of the water. I personally haven’t found this to compromise the quality of the soup at all and happily ate it every day for a week, but it’s something to keep in mind if you’re particular about that sort of thing.
This would also be a great soup to serve if you’re having guests over, accompanied by some crusty bread!
Enjoy!