What I love about food is that it doesn’t just keep us full and healthy, but it also has an interesting way of evoking certain feelings and memories. For example, when I think of minestrone soup, I think of my dad getting us takeout from one of the neighbourhood pizza places. He would get (and still does get!)lentil soups, minestrone soups, and combine them into a new creation called lenti-strone! We would all hang out, choose our soup combination, or no combination at all, eat, enjoy and just spend time together. Any time I eat either kind of soup, I always smile thinking of the fun times we spent together as a family, enjoying our takeout.
As I’ve gotten older, instead of doing takeout, I started crafting these recipes from scratch. They are just two examples of recipes that for me, feel like home. It makes me smile anytime I come up with a recipe that gives me all the feels, and recipes like this have always had a special meaning for me.
Since a classic minestrone is vegetarian, creating a version that was gluten free and dairy free was a lot more straightforward thansome of my recipe remixes. This minestrone soup I came up with is packed full of veggies, and I’ve swapped out the wheat pasta for gluten free. I’ve omitted parmesan, but you can always add some to your final version.
I have yet to combine it with my homemade lentil soup, but it’s the same old minestrone I grew up loving. I hope you love it too.
Ingredients
- 4 medium to large carrots, peeled and chopped
- 3 large celery stalks, chopped
- ½ large white onion or 1 medium white onion, finely diced
- 1 540 ml can of white kidney beans
- 1 540 ml can of diced tomatoes
- 1 small zucchini, diced
- 1½ cups of fresh or frozen green beans, chopped in half
- 6 cups of organic chicken or vegetable broth
- 1½ cups of gluten-free elbow pasta (you can also use shells)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp of olive oil
Recipe
- Heat your olive oil in a large pot on medium heat.
- Add your onion and carrot to the pot. Cover and cook for 5 minutes.
- Add your celery to the pot, give everything a good stir, cover and cook another 5 minutes.
- Add the white kidney beans, diced tomatoes and all your seasoning to the pot. Give everything a stir, cover and cook another 5 minutes
- Add in your broth, cover and bring to a low simmer.
- Lower your heat to medium low, cooking covered for 10-15 minutes making sure it doesn’t start to boil.
- While your soup is cooking, cook your pasta separately according to the al dente package instructions. You want to make sure there is a bit of bite left in the pasta once it is cooked.
- Add in your green beans and zucchini, cover and let cook 5-7 minutes
- Remove your soup from the heat. If you are serving immediately, add in your pasta, serve and enjoy. If you are planning to store the soup, let it cool before adding in the pasta. This will ensure the pasta doesn’t keep cooking in the soup and get mushy
Optional- top with grated parmesan cheese
