Minestrone Soup Recipe

Hey everyone!

With the fall season approaching quickly, it's been getting pretty cold and dark outside lately. All the ladies in my family have been getting sick so I decided to whip out one of my favorite recipes to warm us up and hopefully make us feel better. This minestrone soup recipe comes from Evelyn Raab's "Clueless in the Kitchen - A Cookbook for Teens".

You're going to need: 

1/4 cup olive or vegetable oil

2 medium onions, chopped (I just throw them in a food processor for about 15 seconds)

2 cloves garlic, squished

1 carrot, sliced (baby carrots are fine too)

2 stalks celery, sliced

1 28oz can tomatoes, broken up (I used diced tomatoes)

4 cups water

1/2 cup of any small pasta 

1 cup sliced green beans

2 small zucchini, sliced

3 cups raw spinach, shredded

1 19oz can kidney, or other, beans (I used white beans since I had them)

I would suggest you cut up all the veggies before you even start because it will make the process a lot easier and faster. If you aren't experienced with cutting vegetables, there are tons of tutorials out there for just about every vegetable known to man, so don't sweat it. 

To start off, heat up your oil in a large pot and sauté your onions and garlic until it's nice and soft. This should take about 5 minutes. 

Make sure to stir them around a little bit just to make sure you get them all. Next, add your carrots, celery, tomatoes with all of their juices, and all of the water. 

Add in your celery and carrots

Add in your tomatoes and water

Bring this all to a boil over a medium heat. Reduce the heat, cover it up, and let it simmer for about 40 minutes. I used this time to clean up my disaster of a kitchen and watch youtube videos. Just set a timer on your phone and do whatever you want. 

When your time is up, add your pasta and green beans. I used the rotini noodles since they were the smallest I had and ended up using frozen green beans. Let this cook for ten minutes.

Finally, add the zucchini, spinach and canned beans. The recipe doesn't say anything about draining the beans so I just threw it all in. It says to have this cook for another 10-20 minutes. I was hungry, so I just did the 10 minute option and everything was cooked perfectly. 

Now, I personally think the recipe alone is lacking a little spice. If you want to kick it up a notch, I suggest adding garlic powder, onion powder, worcestershire sauce, lots of pepper, and a little bit of liquid smoke. This is completely optional, of course. 

Another optional, but recommended, step is to serve with parmesan cheese! It melts over the top and gives a nice extra flavor and texture. 

Enjoy and stay warm!

Natalie