Minestrone vegetable soup. Italian recipe

The minestrone soup is a specialty of Italian cuisine. 

A soup made with vegetables that is prepared throughout the year adapting the ingredients to the season’s own ingredients to make the most of them.

Although the preparation of a good minestrone soup takes time, it is a very complete and very nutritionally interesting vegetable recipe .

It is the combination of a vegetable stew with vegetables, noodles or rice and a thick, hot soup, a traditional and hearty dish that is often served as a main dish.

Today’s recipe is one more of the many possibilities of this soup, on the blog you can find a similar soup with vegetables in julienne that is also delicious.

Although they can be purely vegetarian dishes, the usual thing is to add some bacon or ham. Also, as a secret ingredient, a Parmesan cheese crust in the cooking, which will give the soup its great touch. Finally, and already at the moment of serving, basil and Parmesan for each diner.

Preparation of Minestrone soup

1. We soak the white beans the night before we plan to prepare the soup.
2. Peel the carrot, the zucchini and the potato, wash the celery and cut everything into cubes. We blanch the tomato to remove the skin easily and cut it into cubes.
3. Peel and cut the onion and garlic into small pieces. In a large saucepan, heat 5 or 6 tablespoons of olive oil. When it is hot add the onion and garlic and sauté for 5-6 minutes over medium heat. We remove periodically to avoid burning.
4. Add to the casserole the carrot, the potato and the celery already cut. We fry the vegetables until they begin to brown.
5. Drain the beans that we have to soak and add them to the casserole. Add 1 liter of water and cook for 30 minutes over low heat with the saucepan covered. After this time we incorporate the zucchini and the chopped tomato, the peas and the bacon cut into strips.
6. We also add the rice semolina that we can substitute for rice or pasta, the one that we like the most, noodles, macaroni, conches …
7. Season with salt and pepper and cook with the covered pot for 25 more minutes, stirring the soup from time to time
8. Sprinkle with fresh chopped basil and grated Parmesan cheese when serving our minestrone.

Here you have a step by step in photos where I show how to prepare this Minestrone soup recipe.  Do not miss any detail so that it comes out perfect.

Tips for a minestrone yummy soup

• The most common vegetables that are always present are onion, celery, carrot, and tomato. From these we can improvise, beans, zucchini, peas, almost any vegetable is welcome in this recipe.
• Depending on the region of Italy in which we find ourselves the ingredients of this soup vary, there are countless variations of the minestrone. In the north, it is usually prepared with rice and Parmesan, in Tuscany with beans and in the south with tomato and garlic.
• A perfect soup for the little ones at home to eat vegetables. Very appetizing at any time of the year, we take it at home on many occasions for dinner.