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  • Lunch
  • Main Meal
  • Soup
  • Dinner

Minestrone soup

  • 15 mins
  • 40 mins
  • Serves 8-10
  • Gluten Free Option
  • Super Easy
  • One Pot
  • Kid Friendly
  • Oil Free
  • Refined Sugar Free
  • Nut Free
  • Soy Free
  • Entertaining

A warming and filling vegetable soup that helps to clean out the fridge!

Download recipe card

Ingredients

  • 8 cloves garlic, minced
  • 8 sage leaves, chopped
  • Needles from 2 rosemary sprigs, chopped
  • 2 tbsp dried thyme
  • 3 carrots. chopped
  • 3 celery stalks. chopped
  • 1 onion. chopped
  • 1 x 400g can whole tomatoes, crushed
  • 10 cups homemade vegetable stock
  • 3 x 400g cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
  • ½ bunch parsley, chopped
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 bay leaf
  • Cracked pepper
  • 200g wholemeal rigatoni pasta (or other shapes)
  • 1 loaf wholemeal bread
  • Optional: additional 1-2 garlic cloves

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 200°c.
  2. Sauté garlic, sage, rosemary, thyme, carrots, celery, and onion in a non-stick pan over medium-low heat until soft.
  3. Add crushed tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes.
  4. Add vegetable stock, cannellini beans, parsley, juice of 1 lemon and bay leaf and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
  5. Add rigatoni pasta to the soup during the last 5-6 minutes. Discard bay leaf and season with cracked pepper.
  6. Slice the whole grain loaf of bread in half lengthwise. Heat in the oven for 5minutes. Rub a peeled garlic clove over the sliced side to add flavor without adding oil or fat to the bread.
  7. Pour the soup into bowls and serve with warm sliced bread.

Chef's Tips

  • If using gluten-free pasta, make this fresh with every meal and ladle soup on top of cooked pasta to avoid it crumbling.
  • Extra hungry? Toss in half a cup of washed red lentils along with the stock to add further leguminous goodness!
  • This soup lends itself to a delicious variety of veggies, so have fun experimenting according to what’s in season: for example, zucchini, summer squash and pumpkin all work beautifully. It’s great for using up leftover veggies too.
  • Other canned or pre-cooked beans can be subbed in for the cannelloni. A four-bean mix is a great option.
Dr Jeremy Lanford
Dr Jeremy Lanford