How to Make Minestrone Soup from Scratch

Minestrone soup is a delicious and nutritious soup to make at home. Loaded with healthy vegetables, and protein rich beans, it will fill you up and provide you with tons of nutrients!

Are you familiar with Blue Zones? There are different cities around the world where they have a disproportionate number of centurions, or people who live to be 100 years old. A recent Netflix documentary on Blue Zones highlights minestrone soup as a “longevity food”.

What You’ll Need to Make This Soup:

Equipment

• Dutch oven
• Knife
• Measuring cups and spoons

Ingredients

• ⅔ cup Dry Kidney Beans or 2 15.5 oz cans
• ⅓ cup Dry Garbanzo Beans or 1 15.5 oz can
• ⅔ cup Dry Northern White Beansor 1 15.5 oz can
• 1 Yellow Onion diced
• 3 stalks Celery cut into thin pieces
• 4 Carrots sliced into medallions
• 5 Medium Tomatoes or 2 14.5 oz cans
• 1 qt Vegetable Stock
• 2 tbs fresh Oregano or 1 tbs dried
• 2 Bay Leaves
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Small Pasta such as Stellina

How to Make This Soup

My recipe calls for dry beans, but you can absolutely use canned too! Just skip the first 2 steps, and start by adding your canned beans to your vegetable stock and bring to a simmer.

1. If using dry beans, cover with water and soak overnight.
2. In the morning, rinse and add vegetable stock. Bring to a boil for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to simmer and cover for 2 hours to cook the beans.
3. Add vegetables (onions, garlic, carrots, celery, tomatoes) and herbs (oregano and bay leaf).
4. Continue to simmer for up to 4 hours. 20 minutes before serving, add pasta.

Variations for this Minestrone Soup Recipe

Some of my family isn’t fond of garbanzo beans, so occasionally I increase the amount of kidney or northern white beans and omit the garbanzos. You can pretty much use whatever vegetables you have on hand too. In past, I’ve used the ingredients below in addition to the recipe above:

• Zucchini or Summer Squash
• Potatoes
• Pearl Barley
• Kale – torn into small pieces with the ribs removed
• Spinach – I’ve used whole leaf or baby
• Cannellini Beans
• Chicken Stock

Tips and Tricks When Making Minestrone Soup

1. Save your veggie scraps: onion skins, garlic ends, carrot tops and celery bottoms. You can use these to make vegetable stock for your next batch of minestrone soup! I keep a bag of vegetable scraps in my freezer, and make a batch of stock as soon as I have enough.
2. Use fresh herbs if available. I recently found fresh bay leaves and they have added so much depth in flavor to my stocks, soups, and stews. I found them at Walmart, so keep your eyes out!
3. Stir your pasta so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot. I find that the smaller pasta, like the little stars used here tend to stick together or to the bottom of my pot unless I stir them regularly during the cooking process.

How to Serve and Store

We prefer to serve this minestrone soup with a slice of artisan sourdough bread. It makes for such a healthy, hearty meal.

Store in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

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Minestrone Soup

This homemade minestrone soup is delicious and nutritious. Packed full of healthy vegetables and protein rich beans, it will fill you up without weighing you down!

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Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 4 hours hrs

soak beans 8 hours hrs

Course Soup

Cuisine Italian

Servings 8

Equipment

• Dutch Oven
• Knife
• Measuring Cups and Spoons

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• ⅔ cup Dry Kidney Beans or 2 15.5 oz cans
• ⅓ cup Dry Garbanzo Beans or 1 15.5 oz can
• ⅔ cup Dry Northern White Beansor 1 15.5 oz can
• 1 Yellow Onion diced
• 3 stalks Celery cut into thin pieces
• 4 Carrots sliced into medallions
• 5 Medium Tomatoes or 2 14.5 oz cans
• 1 qt Vegetable Stock
• 2 tbs fresh Oregano or 1 tbs dried
• 2 Bay Leaves
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 1 ½ cups Small Pasta such as Stellina

Instructions

 

• If using dry beans, cover with water and soak overnight.
• In the morning, rinse and add vegetable stock. Bring to a boil for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to simmer and cover for 2 hours to cook the beans.
• Add vegetables (onions, garlic, carrots, celery, tomatoes) and herbs (oregano and bay leaf).
• Continue to simmer for up to 4 hours. 20 minutes before serving, add pasta.
• Stir occasionally to ensure pasta doesn't stick.

Notes

Variations can include the following:

• Zucchini or Summer Squash
• Potatoes
• Pearl Barley
• Kale – torn into small pieces with the ribs removed
• Spinach – I’ve used whole leaf or baby
• Cannellini Beans
• Chicken Stock (not for vegan or vegetarian options)

Keyword minestrone soup, vegan, vegetarian

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!