I’ve been struggling with eating lately as something was upsetting my stomach and I had to go back to the basics. When my tummy decides not to cooperate with me I go back to soup, it always seems to work for me. This process has taken about three weeks to figure out the problem. I started eating canned soup. It was not long before I could not face another can so I’m making lots of soup again. First I made a fantastic Tortilla soup – but I ate it too fast to photograph it. Today I made Minestrone soup and I want to share the recipe with you.
Minestrone soup is arguably the best known Italian soup — loosely translated it means “the big soup.” Recipes for it are as varied as chefs. The basics are tomatoes and potatoes (they made their way into the Italian diet in the mid 1500s, before that Italians thought tomatoes were poisonous), onions, zucchini, carrots then you are on your own. Some people make a completely vegetarian soup, some add meat, some make a thin watery base, others cook the liquid down to a stew like texture, pasta and beans are optional. In my case I had some Italian Sausage that I didn’t have plans for so I made “meaty” Minestrone soup. I chose not to put pasta in the soup because Bill doesn’t eat soup so this is mine for the next 4 – 5 days and pasta doesn’t reheat well. My soup is thin broth, but packed with so much flavor that it’s a meal in a cup.
Click Here for a Printable Recipe
Difficulty: Easy
Cook Time: 30 minutes active 40 minutes simmer
Ingredients:
3 Mild Italian Sausages, Skin Removed
1/2 White Onion Diced
1 Cup Chopped Carrot
1/2 Cup Chopped Celery
1 Cup fresh green beans cut in one-inch pieces
1 zucchini diced
1 28 oz box Pomi diced Italian Tomatoes*
Worcestershire sauce to taste (1 Tablespoon)
1 tsp dried chili pepper
1T chopped garlic
1 cup beef broth
2 cups water
1 T dried oregano
2 fresh sprigs thyme
1 bay leaf
4 fresh basil leaves
handful of fresh parsley diced
1 can kidney beans
Salt and Pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese for garnish
Directions:
Crumble sausage and brown over medium high heat in a large stock pot (4 minutes). Add Onion, carrot and celery to the pot and cook until soft (3 – 4 minutes). Add remaining ingredients (excluding kidney beans and Parmesan Cheese). Bring to a boil, reduce and simmer for 30 minutes until vegetables are desired texture. Check for seasoning, add salt and pepper as desired.
Remove bay leaf.
Add kidney beans and heat through.
Yeild: 6 servings
* you can use any diced tomatoes but Pomi are really much better flavor.
I usually have this as my lunch and/or breakfast so I don’t have wine with it. What would you drink?
I really like the addition of the sausage!
It looks amazing… hopefully I can make it look and taste as good as yours!
Cheers!
I love ministrone…
And this looks TERRIFIC.
I will try it out when it starts to cool down in steamy FL
Thanks — I just turn on the AC and pretend we are not in Florida! LOL
[...] handful of fresh parsley diced 1 can kidney beans. Salt and Pepper to taste. Parmesan cheese for garnish. Directions: Crumble sausage and brown over medium high heat in a large stock pot (4 minutes). Add Onion, carrot and celery to the …Continue Reading… [...]
yum, i love minestrone soup, and yours looks great!