Easy, delicious minestrone soup

Lunch

Main Dish

Gluten-Free

Vegetarian

Vegan

Nut-Free

Dairy-Free

Minestrone soup is easy, delicious, and hearty comfort food that is always a favorite. It is packed with vegetables, hearty beans, hearty broth, and grains (if you want!). Minestrone is a powerful recipe to have in your chef toolkit.

About the recipe

There’s so much to say about minestrone soup! This is truly an ancient recipe with a beautifully rich history, and for good reason. Its Italian origins are famous, but did you know that minestrone is often referred to as “poor man’s soup?”

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That’s because this hearty and nourishing dish has historically been made with whatever combination of vegetables a rural Italian family needed to use up. With a strong tomato bean broth as a base, minestrone has been fueling bodies since as early as the 2nd century. Today, it is a staple in Italian restaurants worldwide.

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This is one of the first dinner recipes I served in my TakeTen program because so many taste buds crave the rich and hearty flavors in this soup. This is a great way to add more vegetables to your day.

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In my recipe, I keep it vegetarian but hearty with beans, potatoes, and optional grains. So many of your daily wellness points can be achieved with this powerful (yet so affordable!) meal. And nothing freezes better than a soup, so feel free to save a couple of servings for later when you’re in a pinch.

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Let’s get simmering!

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Ingredients Directions Nutrition facts

Score point earned (6)

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Ingredients

Makes ~16 cups | 2½ cup serving size for a hearty soup meal

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 red pepper, diced
8 garlic cloves, minced
4 ounces (½ cup) tomato paste
1½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon honey
2-3 whole bay leaves
1 teaspoon salt, adjust to taste
1 teaspoon sage, dried crushed
1 teaspoon thyme, dried ground
1 tablespoon dried basil or ½ cup fresh basil, chopped fine
2 teaspoons dried oregano or 2 tablespoons fresh oregano, chopped fine
3 cups canned diced tomatoes or fresh diced tomatoes
2 cups green beans, cut in 1-inch pieces (optional)
2 cups zucchini, sliced, or option of cabbage
1 cup celery, sliced
2 cups carrots, peeled and sliced
3 cups potatoes, diced
6 cups water
3 cups cannellini beans, cooked and drained, or use canned, drained beans
Option: Add 1 cup uncooked whole wheat elbow pasta (Gluten-free option to use quinoa pasta) or option to add ½ cup uncooked whole grains like barley or quinoa.

Directions

Heat a 6-quart saucepan over medium-high heat; add extra virgin olive oil, diced onions, and red peppers. Sauté until softened. Add garlic cloves and cook additional 1 minute.

Add tomato paste, lemon juice, and honey into vegetable mixture, stirring well over medium-high heat for 5 minutes until tomato paste caramelizes. Stir in seasonings of bay leaves, sea salt, sage, thyme, basil, and oregano.

Add canned or fresh tomatoes, diced zucchini, finely sliced celery, and sliced carrots and stir into onion mixture. Cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Add water, diced potatoes, green beans, cooked, drained cannellini, or beans of choice. Bring soup to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer covered for 30 minutes, occasionally stirring until vegetables are cooked through.

Add optional pasta and cook additional 10 minutes or until pasta is cooked. May replace pasta with barley grains and increase cook time additional 30 minutes.

Taste and balance flavor with salt and pepper. Remove bay leaves before serving.

Garnish with fresh herbs like basil and oregano and serve with a side of toasted whole-grain bread and a leafy green salad.

Tips

This recipe is a family favorite and hits all the boxes for hearty, comfort food. The potatoes or the pasta in this soup can be replaced with whole grains like barley or quinoa.

Serve this soup with hearty whole-grain bread toasted to round out a full meal. Or reduce the portion to 1 cup and serve as a starter course to an Italian-inspired dinner.

This soup tastes great when first made, but somehow the flavors infuse even more, and this soup tastes great the next day. It can last up to 5 days stored in a sealed container and refrigerated.

If you want to freeze this soup to have extra ready for that last-minute quick pre-made dinner, make the soup and leave out the potatoes and replace with the whole grains. Potatoes get mushy when they are frozen. Everything else in this soup tastes just as good after being frozen.

When you are making a vegetarian-based soup, it is important to create flavors from herbs and from the caramelization process of the onions. Caramelizing the tomato paste is the critical flavor enhancer for this recipe. When adding the tomato paste, be sure the sugars of the tomato paste are caramelized; you will see this happen in the bottom of the skillet. This step adds a deep rich flavor without having to simmer this soup for hours in a traditional minestrone soup recipe. It is easy to burn the tomato paste when heating to caramelize, so watch this step carefully and continuously stir to prevent burning. As soon as the caramelization starts, it is ready to add the remaining ingredients, and your soup is headed for the best flavor ever.

Choosing the right canned tomatoes can make a difference in this recipe. My favorite canned tomatoes are either Hunts Roma tomatoes or Marzana Italian Roma tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes would be great in this recipe as well, but Roma tomatoes work best, in my opinion, whether fresh or canned.

You can make your beans from scratch in an electric pressure cooker. Add 1½ cups of rinsed, drained cannellini beans with 3 cups of water and cook on the bean setting for 45-60 minutes or until just tender. You can boost the flavor of the beans by cooking them with a bay leaf or two, or any Italian seasonings you enjoy, but do not cook the beans with salt. Salt will make the beans tougher and should only be added to cooked beans. After the beans are cooked, add any salt if desired and then add to the Minestrone Soup at the appropriate step. Beans can be made several days ahead, and cooked beans freeze very well. Canned beans work fine in this recipe because it is simmered for a long time, and the flavors will infuse into the beans, but nothing tastes as delicious as freshly made beans from scratch if you enjoy the process.

Add broccoli or cauliflower to this soup if you want add some cruciferous vegetables to your meal and add another one point to the score.

Serve this hearty Minestrone Soup with a side of green leafy salad to add greens to your day, and add a whole multigrain piece of toasted bread to get more whole grains points.

Nutrition Facts

Serving size

2½ cups soup

Amount per serving

Calories

303

Protein

Total carbohydrate

Dietary fiber

Net carbs

Total fat

Cholesterol

omega 3 short chain fatty acids

Sodium

620

Potassium

1405

Vitamin c

Iron

Calcium

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We read on line that bananas will cancel out the goodness of the other fruits and veggies. Is this true?

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April 27, 2024

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Reply from Dr. Cheryl:

-I am a fan of bananas. They get a bad rap on social media with those focused on carbs being bad and looking at continuous blood sugar monitoring. Bananas are a whole plant food loaded with soluble fiber. Soluble fiber helps us bind and delay the surge of blood sugar to improve insulin resistance and helps to keep us full AND removes cholesterol from our body. When we eat bananas as part of a meal or snack that has protein and healthy plant fats, we can get all the wins of bananas with high fiber and healthy carbs and not end up with a blood sugar spike from that meal. For athletes and those exercising regularly, bananas are a great way to fuel the body and replenish the muscle fuel glycogen. So if you are moving and eating healthy meals, bananas can be part of your diet and wellness routine. They are personally one of my favorite fast foods to eat.

Here is my problem- I am a Type I diabetic and 74 grams (in my experience- a recent diagnosis) would take a lot of short acting units of insulin 4 units for 80 grams. I’m concerned about this. Wonder is this is the program for me?

juliannayates@gamil.com

March 21, 2024

super-six-smoothie

Reply from Dr. Cheryl:

-I specialize in diabetes care and have helped hundreds of people with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. There is 74 grams of total carbs in this smoothie and 23 grams of these carbs are from fiber since the ingredients are all whole plant foodsI What we teach in Dr. Cheryl Wellness is how to count carbs and focus medication dosages on NET carbs - so this smoothie as it is has 51g of net carbs and this is a full meal replacement that will keep you full for 4 hours. So if you need 1 unit of short acting insulin for every 20 grams of carbohydrate (as you noted in your comment your Rx is with type 1 diabetes), you would need 2.5 units of insulin for this full meal smoothie. I help members adapt a meal plan and wellness routine that works for them even with type 1 diabetes. People with Type 1 Diabetes, you can become insulin resistant and so it takes both food and lifestyle habits to help you become more insulin sensitive and at the same time not let you miss out one getting the healthy antioxidants you need to combat other diseases, have a healthy gut, and add more healthy years. You get these protective antioxidants from whole fruits and vegetables and too many health professionals are stripping these away from those with diabetes with the siloed focus of blood sugar and not exploring ways your body can maximize on all the benefits of whole fruits and vegetable and whole food carbohydrates, protein and fat and at the same time balance your blood sugar to optimize your insulin dosage. For you, I would suggest adding 10 more grams of protein to this smoothie in the form of 1/4 cup more of nuts or adding greek non-fat yogurt or a scoop of pea or whey protein powder if you prefer. I will work with you in my membership to find the right formula for each of your meals so you can optimize your nutrition and balance your blood sugar. I hope you sign up for my weekly email, check out my membership and listen to my weekly podcast "The Wellness Table" on your favorite podcast platform or here on the website on the podcast tab or on Youtube channel Dr Cheryl Wellness. Great to see you here.

Hello Dr. Cheryl! I would love to try this recipe, but the list of ingredients is incomplete as written. Just thought you should know!

Julia

February 21, 2024

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Reply from Dr. Cheryl:

Sorry for the delay in response. Just learning how to reply to comments on my new website. I fixed the recipe based on your catching this error and it should be great for you now. Thank you for letting me know. I hope you enjoy this delicious smoothie.

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Reply from Dr. Cheryl:

I am very glad your husband is doing better and finding some solutions for his condition. Great to have you visit Dr. Cheryl Wellness website where my mission is to help you create a diet and wellness routine that combats disease and add more healthy years to your life. This would be great for your husband to combine with any other treatments. Join my weekly email list to get my latest weekly content delivered to your inbox. Listen or watch my weekly podcast The Wellness Table and I invite you to check out my membership.

Thanks Sandra! We love this recipe!

Dr. Cheryl

August 22, 2023

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Reply from Dr. Cheryl:

So glad you are enjoying this recipe. It definitely is a family favorite at my house.

Sushi is my fav!!

Sandra

August 16, 2023

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Reply from Dr. Cheryl:

I love it too! You can get all your healthy foods wrapped up in a sushi roll for a delicious meal.

Love this coffee!

Sandra

August 16, 2023

superfood-coffee

Reply from Dr. Cheryl:

Great to see how to respond to your comments on my new website. Glad you enjoy the superfood coffee. A great start to your day.

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