Classic Minestrone SoupĀ
on Feb 16, 2020, Updated Jul 15, 2024
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This veggie-packed, herby noodle dish is the classic minestrone soup you love with simple ingredients and flavors, perfect with some grated parmesan on top!
Have you had minestrone before? It’s a classic Italian soup that is chock-full of colorful veggies, hearty beans, yummy herbs, and the tastiest finale ever: noodles! So it’s definitely filling and filled with flavor, but it’s also super healthy thanks to all that veggie power loaded into it. I love a classic minestrone on cool evenings when all you want is a big bowl of something warm and homemade.
Don’t let the ingredients list intimidate you! It’s all hearty vegetables and flavorful herbs with beans, broth, and noodles to even it out. It’s a comforting soup that’s super easy to make any night of the week. It’s good enough to eat solo (and get seconds), or pair it with a simple side salad and a piece of crusty, rustic bread, perfect for dipping.
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Versatile Ingredients: You can customize the soup with whatever vegetables you have on hand. It’s a great way to use up leftover produce and clean out your refrigerator.
- Vegetarian Friendly: This recipe is naturally vegetarian. It’s great for those times when you need a meatless meal.
- Comfort Food: There’s just something incredibly comforting about a warm bowl of homemade soup.
Ingredients
- Olive Oil
- Onion
- Carrots
- Celery
- Tomato Paste
- Garlic
- Oregano
- Thyme
- Vegetable Broth
- Canned Diced Tomatoes: the large can, 28 ounces
- Water
- Mixed Seasonal Vegetables: Potatoes, Yellow Squash, Zucchini, Green Beans and/or Peas all work
- Bay Leaves
- Salt & Pepper
- Small Pasta: such as small shells, orecchiette, or elbow macaroni
- Great Northern Beans or Cannellini Beans: 1 can or 1 ½ cups home cooked beans
- Baby Spinach or Kale
- Freshly Grated Parmesan Cheese: for garnishing – delicious but optional.
See the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and quantities
How to Make Classic Minestrone Soup
Step #1. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven. Add the onions, carrots, and celery and cook until tender. Stir in the tomato paste, garlic, oregano, and thyme.
Step #3. Bring the soup to a boil and simmer until the vegetables are tender. Add the pasta and cook another 10 minutes, stirring often, until pasta is cooked.
Step #2. Add the broth, diced tomatoes, and water. Stir in the seasonal vegetables, bay leaves, and salt.
Step #4. Add the beans and spinach or kale and simmer 5 more minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with parmesan if desired.
Recipe FAQs
Minestrone soup is a thick Italian soup made with a bunch of veggies, beans, and usually either rice or pasta (or sometimes both!). There’s not one set recipe for minestrone because it’s sort of one of those everything-but-the-kitchen-sink recipes, which is great news for easy dinners and clearing out the pantry!
Minestrone originated in Italy. The name literally means “big soup” and that is the perfect description of it! It’s thick, rich, hearty, and full of great flavors and bunches of fresh ingredients.
Common vegetables in a classic minestrone include onions, celery, carrots, and tomatoes, but you can throw in anything you like and have around! This is a great soup to use what you like, add veggies that are in season, and clean out the vegetable drawer with. I’ve never made a batch of minestrone soup that I didn’t like.
Minestrone is definitely a herbaceous soup and has garlic, oregano, thyme, bay leaves, salt, and pepper in it to give it that classic Italian flavor!
You can! Set it to the high sauté setting and add the olive oil, onion, carrot, and celery. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring, until onion is tender. Stir in tomato paste, garlic, oregano, and thyme, and stir for another 1 minute. Stir in vegetable broth, diced tomatoes, water, mixed seasonal veggies, salt, bay leaves, pepper, pasta, and beans, and select the manual setting. Adjust pressure to high and set timer for 5 minutes. After it’s finished cooking, quick-release the pressure. Stir in the spinach or kale and season with salt and pepper to taste! Serve hot with fresh grated parmesan on top.
Minestrone in the slow cooker is the easiest thing ever! Simply add all the ingredients to the crock pot, minus the spinach or kale, and cook on high for 2 hours or low for 4 hours. Stir in the spinach or kale before serving — it wilts quickly so it doesn’t need to cook along with everything else!
Traditional minestrone soup is not made with meat, but if you want to up the protein and make the soup even heartier, feel free to brown some ground beef, turkey, or pork when you’re sautéing the onion, carrots, and celery!
Expert Tips
- It’s best to add the vegetables in stages. Add the sturdier vegetables like potatoes and carrots several minutes before the quick cooking vegetables like zucchini and yellow squash so they don’t get mushy.
- If you’re lucky enough to have a parmesan rind, add it to the soup while it simmers, then remove before serving. It adds a delicious creaminess and flavor.
- Different beans have different textures so switching up the kind you use is a fun way to add variety to your minestrone.
- Use quinoa or rice instead of pasta to make the soup gluten free.
How to Freeze Minestrone Soup
Minestrone soup is a great freezer item. Store in airtight, freezer-safe containers after it’s completely cooled, and freeze for up to 4 months. To thaw, place container in the fridge overnight and reheat the soup in a large stock pot over medium heat until warmed through when ready to serve.
What to Serve with Classic Minestrone Soup
- The Best Homemade Cornbread Recipe
- The Best Butter Biscuits
- My Favorite Go-To Sourdough Bread Recipe
- Parmesan Focaccia Bread
- Mom’s Easy French Bread Recipe
- Mom’s Jumbo Dinner Rolls
- Easy Bread Sticks Recipe
More Soup Recipes to Consider
Soups, Stews & Chowders
Sausage Bean Soup with Spinach
From Scratch Recipes
Beef Noodle Soup
1 Hour or Longer Recipes
Beef Bourguignon
Soups, Stews & Chowders
Chicken Wild Rice Soup
Did you make this recipe? Leave a ⭐️ review and share it on Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest!
Classic Minestrone Soup
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
- 2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
- 2 medium ribs celery, chopped
- ¼ cup tomato paste
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 1 large can diced tomatoes, with the liquid (28 ounces)
- 2 cups water
- 2 cups chopped mixed seasonal vegetables, potatoes, yellow squash, zucchini, green beans and/or peas all work
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 bay leaves
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 cup small shell pasta, orecchiette, or elbow macaroni
- 1 can Great Northern beans or cannellini beans, 15 ounces, rinsed and drained, or 1 ½ cups home cooked beans
- 2 cups baby spinach or chopped kale
- Additional salt and pepper, to taste
- Freshly grated parmesan cheese, for garnishing
Instructions
- In a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat, add the olive oil and heat until shimmering. Add the onions, carrots, and celery, and cook until the onions are tender, about 8 minutes.
- Add the tomato paste and stir to combine.
- Add the garlic, oregano, and thyme, and stir to combine. Cook until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Add the vegetable broth, diced tomatoes, and water, and stir to combine.
- Add the mixed vegetables, salt, and bay leaves, and stir to combine.
- Bring the soup to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook until all the vegetables are tender (if I’m using potatoes or fresh green beans, I like to throw them in first because they take longer to cook, and I’ll then add other tender vegetables like zucchini and beans after 15 minutes of cook time).
- Simmer for 20 minutes.
- Add the pasta and cook for an additional 10 minutes, stirring often so that the pasta doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot.
- Add the beans and spinach or kale, and cook for an additional 5 minutes, stirring often.
- Adjust the salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve hot with grated parmesan on top if you desire.
Notes
- So flexible! Use what you like and what you have, it’s going to be great!
- Feel free to use chicken stock instead of vegetable if that’s what you have on hand.
- If using gluten free pasta, just be sure to not over cook it (it tends to fall apart when over cooked).
- Please see the post on instructions for how to make this in the Instant Pot AND in the slow cooker.
- This recipe makes a large batch, feel free to make a half batch or plan on sharing with a friend or saving half in the freezer for a later date if you don’t need as much.
This Minestrone Soup is delicious! I thought it might be heavy with the pasta and beans. It was very light and flavorful!
A wonderfully simple and tasty recipe.
At first I thought the soup was just okay, the I added pesto which really elevated it to a very good soup!
Very healthy and filling recipe, definitely adding to my rotation.
Great minestrone recipe, perfect on a wet, fall day.
Great soup, absolutely delicious. I did add brown ground beef to make it heartier. I also used fresh diced tomatoes from the garden rather than the canned and used 3 cups of broth. I doubled the amount of oregano and thyme, a 1/2 tsp didnāt seem like enough; tasted perfect to me. Will definitely make again.
This is my first time making minestrone soup in my life, and it is a success! It is delicious and filling. Knowing that I’m providing a healthy food for my family, my mood index went to the top.
Great recipe. Easy to make and the smells through out the house were incredible
The minestrone soup was really good. I’ve been reading suggestions to use fire roasted tomatoes in some soups and may try that next time.
I made this for the 10 day soup challenge. It was a good, hearty minestrone. Will definitely make again.