This Easy Minestrone Soup is a delicious classic vegetarian recipe that can also be made in the Instant pot or the Slow Cooker! Pairs perfectly with our Overnight No-Knead Artisan Bread.
Do you ever feel like you waste your time cooking a delicious dinner you KNOW your picky eaters are going to hate anyway?
I do ALL THE TIME, lol. In fact, when my husband and I first got married, he straight up told me the only soup he would eat would be Campbell’s chicken noodle. From the can. Period. End of discussion.
Well… being the awesome new wife that I was, I didn’t listen and made him this classic minestrone soup recipe for dinner and you know what? HE LOVED IT!
Here we are several years later and he STILL requests this soup for dinner!
Classic Minestrone Soup Recipe
I love making this particular minestrone soup recipe because is CRAZY easy. You literally dump everything in a pot and let it cook while you happily walk away to do something else.
But I also love this recipe because:
- My kids love it
- It’s freezer-friendly…
- And adaptable for the stove-top, slow cooker AND/OR the Instant Pot
- It’s super versatile and adapts to whatever vegetables, beans, and pasta you have on hand
- It’s easy to add MORE vegetables too
- I almost always have everything on hand to make it
The best reason to make minestrone soup? You can have it on the table in under an hour!! (Less if you prep ahead of time!)
Healthy Ingredients for Minestrone Soup (Better than Olive Garden!)
It feels like you need a lot of ingredients for minestrone soup, but they’re pretty basic and straight forward:
- Olive oil. To sauté the veggies.
- Carrots + celery + onion + garlic. The base of your soup flavor.
- Chicken stock. Homemade is best, and Instant Pot chicken stock is EASY.
- Diced tomatoes + white beans.
- Bay leaf + sage + salt + pepper.
- Kale (or spinach)
- Small pasta. Elbows or shells are perfect.
- Parmesan cheese. (optional, but good!)
- Tomato paste. But only if you have some leftover in the fridge (and here’s how to freeze tomato paste!)
What vegetables do you use in minestrone soup?
A note on the vegetables… you can pretty much use whatever you want. Here are some other great options:
- Zucchini
- Eggplant
- Green beans
- Potatoes
- Peas
- Butternut squash
What beans should you use in minestrone soup?
Cannellini, kidney beans, navy beans, and great northern are all good options! The Harvard Medical School says that beans are a recipe for good health – packed full of vitamins and minerals, and a great source of protein!
What is the difference between vegetable soup and minestrone?
Good question! Minestrone soup is tomato-based, and usually has vegetables, beans, and pasta added. Vegetable soup is broth based and doesn’t always have pasta.
How to Make Minestrone Soup… on the Stove Top
- Sauté your veggies + add everything else except the pasta.
- Let the soup simmer and cook the pasta separately.
- Serve the pasta, ladle the soup over and serve warm!
… in a Slow Cooker
- Add everything but the pasta to the slow cooker (I like this slow cooker).
- Cook on low for 4-6 hours; cook the pasta separately.
- Serve the pasta, ladle the soup over and serve warm!
… in an Instant Pot
- Add everything but the pasta to the Instant Pot (I use this Instant Pot).
- Cook on high pressure for 5 minutes and use quick pressure release. Cook the pasta separately.*
- Serve the pasta, ladle the soup over and serve warm!
* If you add the pasta directly to the soup, you can cook for 4 minutes and use quick pressure release.
What goes with minestrone soup?
Homemade bread of course! I recommend no-knead overnight artisan bread or 90 minute man bread if you’re new to baking bread. For the more advanced, my einkorn sourdough loaf is SO GOOD.
Can minestrone soup be frozen?
Yes! I freeze cooled soup in quart freezer-safe bags. Be sure to label the bags, and freeze them laying flat FIRST. Then you can stand them up like books. This saves on freezer space.
I do recommend freezing the noodles separately, just so that they don’t get mushy when you go to reheat the soup. Here’s a tutorial showing you how to freeze pasta.
Other Easy Soup Recipes
- Homemade Cream of Mushroom Soup
- Leftover Pork and Potato Soup
- Instant Pot White Bean Soup with Sausage and Kale
- Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup
- Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Soup
- Garlic White Bean Soup with Kale
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This Easy Minestrone Soup is a delicious classic vegetarian recipe that can also be made in the Instant pot or the Slow Cooker! Pairs perfectly with our Overnight No-Knead Artisan Bread.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 1.5 Quarts 1x
- Category: Soup and Salad
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 carrots, diced
- 2 ribs of celery, diced
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 Tbsp dried sage
- 4 cups chicken stock (how to make homemade chicken stock)
- 1 (15 oz) can diced tomatoes with their juice
- 1 (15 oz) can cannellini beans, drained (or 2 cups homemade beans)
- 2 cups kale, chopped
- 6–8 oz small dried pasta (elbow, shell, tubettini, etc.)
- grated Parmesan cheese for garnish (optional)
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat olive oil and garlic in a large soup pot over medium high heat and sauté until the garlic is lightly browned. Add carrot, onion and celery and cook, stirring often, until vegetables start to soften and brown. Season with salt and pepper.
- Add tomatoes, bay leaf, sage and chicken broth. Simmer uncovered for approximately 30 minutes. Add the beans and kale and continue to simmer for 20-30 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- About 15 minute before the soup is ready, cook pasta in a separate pot until al dente. Drain well and serve 1/2 – 3/4 cup pasta in serving bowls. Ladle the soup over the pasta and sprinkle generously with grated cheese.
Tiffany – I have your recipe for High Protein Sweet and Salty Trail Mix, do you
use roasted and salted nuts and sweetened cranberries, or raw nuts.
Most of my nuts are roasted and salted, but use whichever you prefer Joan!
Can this be made in a crockpot? Soup and slow cooker also seem to go together in my mind and I’d love to be able to make this when I’m out for the whole day.
Yes! On low for 6-8 hours is fine, but add the noodles at the end.
Great thx. Since the noodles go under hot soup, I cook make them ahead of time and keep them in the fridge til serving, right? Just need to get some kale . . . or . . . I have a big zucchini sitting on my counter, would that work instead of kale?
Yes to the noodles and zucchini! You can use any vegetable in this soup really. For zucchini, add it when you’d add the greens since it’s a soft veggie in the first place. It won’t take long to cook.
Hello! Can this soup be frozen? Thank you! Cant wait to try this recipe!
Yes you can!
This is incredible!!!! I served it with the homemade bread and honey butter. My family is in love with it!
Great news Alexandria! This is one of our favorites too 🙂
Hey! I know this is an old post but… this recipe is in your July 2014 menu plan, so here I am.
To kick it up a notch, throw the parmesan rind into the soup during the simmer. Seriously, do it! So good (saw that trick when Giada deLaurentis was making a minestrone on her cooking show…) It’s amazing.
Oh yes! We do this when I remember to freeze the rind, lol. Actually, I have one in the freezer right now! How lucky is the person who gets the big chunk of cheese in their soup!!!
OH, this does sound amazing!! It would make anybody a soup lover! My name is Cindy and I blog over at Vegetarianmamma.com I wanted to invite you to link up your recipe and any others at our Gluten Free Fridays Recipe Link up party! It happens every Friday and we’d love to have you join us with some of your awesome recipes! It doesn’t mean that you have to be a gluten free bloggers. If you have some recipes on your blog that are gluten free that counts! 🙂 Many recipes are naturally gluten free.
Also be sure to link up your blog on our Gluten Free Bloggers directory. You can reach the directory by clicking the “glutenfree bloggers” tab on our blog! Thanks, Cindy 🙂
Thanks for the invite Cindy!
Thank you for your submission on Nourishing Treasures’ Make Your Own! Monday link-up.
Check back tomorrow when the new link-up is running to see if you were one of the top 3 featured posts! 🙂
Thank you!
This was really good! I added some sliced Turkey Kielbasa to it. Delicious!
Yum-O! LOVE Kielbasa.
Yay for soup! I can’t wait to try this, like you I too am yearning to get Hubby-brownie points for weeks!