This White Bean Minestrone Soup is filled with veggies, hearty, and perfect for a sick day at home. The ingredients in this recipe are simple, plant based friendly, and don’t require a lot of prep work.
It’s officially 2024, and somehow I started the year with a cold. In my culture, we “cure” colds by drinking ginger ale, eating soup, or drinking tea, so I decided soup was the best option. As I was gathering the ingredients for this soup, I had nostalgic memories about what soup meant to me as a kid. Besides being sick, my mom made soup during the cold winter months when she didn’t have the energy to cook. I remember coming home from school, and smelling the aroma of pumpkin, corn, and coconut milk cooking in the calabash pot. As children, we knew that soup was an easy dish, but a labor of love because of the time it took to marry the flavors. Today as an adult, I try to channel that same nostalgia in all of my meals.
Ingredients for White Bean Minestrone Soup
- White Cannellini beans: this gives a nutty, creamy taste to the soup mix. It also adds some plant based protein.
- Veggies (Celery, Zucchini, Spinach, Green Beans, Carrots): this is gives the soup a hearty flavor, and adds texture.
- Aromatics (Onions and garlic): adds a caramelized, slighty sweet flavor.
- Diced tomatoes & Crushed Tomatoes: this is the heavy lifter of the soup because it provides acidity and texture with the crushed tomatoes.
- Ditalini Pasta: when cooked al dente, this gives the soup a great bite and extra starch.
- Vegetable broth: adds more aroma and flavor.
Cooking & Prep Process
This soup can easily be made in a large stock pot, or an instant pot. The bulk of the prep work for this soup includes chopping the onions, carrots, celery, zucchini, and green beans. Many times when I make soup, I will used minced garlic, or the frozen garlic pods. I can be kind of lazy when it comes to chopping certain veggies, so sometimes I rely on convenience. The other thing to consider is the type of canned beans that you purchase. Many times, canned beans have added salt in it, to help with the preservation process. If this is the case, you can rinse the beans and drain it. Otherwise, if you use low sodium canned beans, you can just drain the liquid. No need to rinse it since there isn’t much salt added, and the bean flavor compliments the soup.
If you were to cook this in the instant pot, it would be best to use the saute feature, to cook the first set of veggies (onions, carrots, celery) until softened. Then add the rest of the ingredients, except the pasta, and place it on the soup function, with the pressure knob sealed. The soup should take 20-25 minutes to cook. After that, you can add the cooked pasta in, or add the pasta dry, with some more broth (about 3/4 cup), stir and cook it for another 10 minutes.
This soup is:
- Savory and hearty.
- Easy to store, freeze, and reheat.
- Packs well for lunch and/or dinner.
- Pairs well with a nice, toasty sandwich or garlic bread.
- Has way more vegetables than average minestrone soups.
- Is a great way to nourish yourself during the cold winter months, or on sick days.
Did you make this recipe?
White Bean Minestrone Soup
Ingredients
- 2 large celery stalks, chopped
- 3 medium carrots, diced
- 1/2 white or yellow onion, diced
- 3 garlic cloves, minced (2-3 tsp of minced garlic)
- 4-5 cups low sodium vegetable broth You can add per your desired thickness
- 1 zucchini, diced
- 1 (14 oz) canned diced tomatoes
- 1 (14 oz) canned crushed tomatoes
- 1 tbsp herbs de provence or Italian seasoning
- 1 tsp salt (+ I added a 1 tsp of McKay's Vegan Chicken Style Seasoning)
- 1-2 tbsp olive oil for cooking
- 1 (15 oz) canned cannellini beans, low sodium (White beans or great northern beans are ok too)
- 2-3 cups baby spinach
- 1/2 cup dry Barilla Ditalini Pasta (2 oz is about 1/2 cup dry pasta)
Instructions
- Heat olive oil, in a large stock pot, on medium heat. Then add chopped onions, garlic, celery, and carrots. Saute for 5-7 minutes until wilted and softened.
- Add vegetable broth, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, and salt. Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat and simmer.
- Add drained white beans, chopped zucchini, and green beans. Bring mixture to a simmer for 20-30 minutes. As the soup simmers, cook your desired pasta (ditalini) until al dente. This information will usually be on the back of the pasta box.
- After the pasta is cooked, drain it in a sieve, and add it to the soup mixture. Let it simmer for 10 minutes, and then add baby spinach. Let it wilt and cook down while still maintaining its green color. Ladle soup in bowls, then serve.
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