Minestrone Soup
With the colder weather coming upon us and the leaves changing colors, all I want is soup. I bet all you want is soup too! Soup is everywhere. Jenna of Eat, Live, Run just made Beth T‘s Creamy White Chicken Chili, and Mama Pea of Peas and Thank You made “Minnie”strone Soup.
This minestrone soup is not my own. My friend Loco made it for me years ago when we were all studying in Florence, Italy, and since that first taste I have been in love. We would eat it with this bread we bought from Sabrina’s bakery called Pane Panda, which was a soft multigrain bread with seeds.
My go to winter soup recipe, each batch of this soup is slightly different than the last depending on what we have in the pantry and fridge. I share last night’s version below. Unlike Mama Pea’s super fresh soup of yesterday, this relies on some frozen vegetables to help cut some time. It is still very healthy though, and you feel like you are eating a heap of vitamins with every bite. The addition of potatoes and/or pastina as well as beans help make it a one pot meal.
Minestrone Soup
Serves 4-6 for dinner
Ingredients:
1 bag mixed frozen vegetables
1 bag frozen butternut squash
1 celery stalk (whole)
1 6 oz can tomato paste
4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
2-3 cups water
1 zucchini, peeled and diced
1 small potato, peeled and diced
1 oz small pasta shells
1 bay leaf
1 can pinto beans, rinsed
freshly ground black pepper to taste
Directions:
Heat a large pot over medium high heat. Add all of the ingredients except for the beans and pepper to the pot. Cover. When the mixture comes to a boil set the heat to low and add the beans. Stir and leave on low for 20 minutes or so, until you are ready to eat. Top each bowl with freshly ground black pepper (and grated parmigiano if you choose) and serve with bread, farinata (more on that tomorrow), or crackers. Enjoy!
Note: There is no added salt in this recipe because both the tomato paste and the broth already have salt added.
hey, if this is authentically italian you can sign me up 🙂 i love that it has shells instead of other cuts of pasta…just adds more great texture!
This looks wonderful- I haven’t had minestrone with butternut squash before.
I love minestrone- just book marked this 🙂 Thanks for sharing. Love the BN squash addition
Love the squash! Yum!
love the addition of butternut squash, yum!
Yummy; sounds delicious…I’m gunna cook this up this weekend…Lovin’ the squash in there.
Minestrone soup is one of my favorite soups. I am not a huge soup person, but every once and awhile I love a big bowl of warm soup!!
I’m so excited for soups!
I can’t wait for fall to get here officially so I can start making some soup! Soup is one of my favorite things to make because it’s so simple, it’s warm and it is great for leftovers! I already wrote down your Minestrone Soup recipe 🙂
Minestrone with parm and a huge hung of bread is such a satisfying cooler months meal 🙂 I like the idea of adding butternut squash!
*hunk haha
It looks delicious, even if it’s not named after a cartoon mouse!
I’m excited for “soup season”! Looks good.
Good times in italia.