Minestrone Soup Recipe

If you remember a few weeks ago I went on a long walk with my son. We ended up at the farm shop and bought the most enormous cabbage that you have ever seen. I had to walk quite a long way with a cabbage in one hand and the dog’s lead in the other. I am sure I looked quite a sight. I ended up looking for lots of different ways to cook cabbage. I thought about making cabbage soup but that made me think of diets and school dinners. I then came up with the idea of making Minestrone Soup.

Minestrone soup is an Italian vegetable soup that normally contains pasta. I have only had it from tins and packets previously and the taste does seem to vary randomly depending who makes it. I wasn’t sure how the home-made version was going to turn out but I have to say I was really pleased with the result, it was absolutely bursting with flavour.

The Minestrone soup was really easy to make. There is a lot of chopping of vegetables involved, but once you have done all the chopping it does not take long. This is the recipe I used in case you would like to try it yourself.

Minestrone Soup Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 celery sticks
• 1 carrot
• 400g (13oz) tin chopped tomatoes
• 600ml (1 pint) chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 courgette
• 1/2 small cabbage
• 75g (3oz) can butter beans
• 75g (3oz) dried spaghetti
• salt and pepper

Method

1. Chop the onion, celery and  carrot into small pieces and crush the garlic clove.
2. Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the onion, celery, carrot and garlic. Cook over a medium heat for around 5 minutes until softened
3. Add the tomatoes, stock and beans. Chop the cabbage into small pieces and add that as well.
4. Dice the courgette and add this to the mix.
5. Add the spaghetti. Bring to the boil and simmer for about ten to fifteen minutes until the pasta is soft. You will need to stir all the time so that the soup does not stick to the pan.

Serve in bowls with crusty bread. My family really enjoyed the soup and my son even asked for more. He is not usually a soup lover and it is a really good way to make sure he got some vegetables. Do let me know what you think if you make it.

Disclosure: I made minestrone soup because I had an enormous cabbage that I needed to use up. I am still wondering if it was a cabbage and not a triffid.

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• Goulash Soup
• Halloween Pumpkin Soup