Minestrone Soup is the sort of soup that keeps life interesting – it’s filled to the brim with a variety of vegetables, potato, beans and pasta, in a thick tomato broth that’s full of savoury flavour. Nobody ever leaves the table dissatisfied after hoovering down a bowl of this!
Minestrone Soup
It’s hearty, it’s chunky, it comes fully loaded and the savoury tomato soup broth is full of flavour thanks to a few extra little touches that make all the difference: bacon sautéed until golden, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, and the final touch – parmesan stirred in the soup as well as sprinkled on top.
So if you’ve ever made and been unimpressed by a Minestrone Soup before – I promise you, this one will not disappoint! (Because I’ve been there too, which is essentially why I ended up just creating my own. 😇)
What goes in Minestrone Soup
Fair warning – I put everything but the kitchen sink in my minestrone soup! 😂 I like mine with lots of variety. But actually, it means the add ins for minestrone soup are highly customisable (circled in the photo below).
The secret ingredients for the minestrone soup broth are bacon, parmesan and Worcestershire sauce, and a touch of tomato paste which thickens the broth nicely as well has driving home the tomato flavour. Together, they add extra flavour that takes what can sometimes be a pretty meh! soup into give me seconds! Thirds!
Best pasta for Minestrone Soup?
Small pasta works best for easier eating and also they don’t bloat as much as large pasta (like rigatoni) when leftovers are left in the broth.
I used Ditalini (very small tubes, pictured above) but any small pasta works fine – try tiny shells, risoni / orzo, small macaroni or even alphabet or tiny star shaped pasta!
How to make Minestrone Soup
There’s no denying there’s a fair amount of veggie chopping involved, but the good news is that the cooking part all happens in one pot!
After sautéing the bacon, garlic and onion, the veggies get added in the time it takes to cook. So if you’re customising your add ins – and I thoroughly encourage you to – start with the vegetables that can hold up to long cook times first, and faster cooking vegetables last.
PRO TIP: Cook the pasta to just before al dente – take the pot off the stove at the recommended cook time per packet MINUS 1 1/2 minutes. The pasta will finish cooking in the residual heat to perfect al dente, then the pasta will hold up fine even stored IN the broth for 2 to 3 days. It does soften more but it doesn’t go unpleasantly mushy.
Using small pasta also helps with this (larger pasta and long string pasta bloats more, breaks apart etc).
What to serve with Minestrone Soup
The nice thing about Minestrone Soup is that it comes fully loaded with plenty of vegetables (not just the chopped fresh vegetables, but also the canned tomato and onion counts towards your daily veg intake!) plus starch (beans, pasta, potato).
So it’s a complete meal in a bowl that’s hearty, satisfying, and keeps you full. And pretty healthy too, if you opt for lean bacon!
But nobody says no to crusty bread for dunking – especially if it’s warm and slathered in butter. Try this crusty Artisan Bread (pretty sure it’s officially the world’s easiest yeast bread recipe). And if you’re out of yeast, try this no yeast Sandwich Bread, Irish Soda Bread or Flatbread – all easy, all terrific! – Nagi x
Breads to serve with Minestrone Soup
Watch how to make it
Note on video error! One of the cans of tomato I tipped into the pot was WHOLE tomato instead of crushed. So off camera, I stuck my hand into the pot and crushed them myself. 😂
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Minestrone Soup
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 150g / 5oz bacon , finely chopped
- 1 onion , chopped
- 2 garlic cloves , minced
- 800g/ 28oz crushed tomato (or 700g passata)
- 2 cups chicken stock/broth , low sodium
- 2 cups water
- 3 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 400g/ 14oz canned kidney beans , drained
- 1 tsp EACH salt and pepper
- 1 cup small pasta , like ditalini, tiny shells, risoni/orzo, baby macaroni, alphabet or star pasta
- 1/4 cup parmesan , grated
Minestrone Vegetables (Note 1):
- 1 celery rib* , chopped 1.5cm / 1/2" pieces
- 1 large carrot* , peeled and diced 1.5cm / 1/2" pieces
- 1 zucchini* , chopped 1.5cm / 1/2" pieces
- 1 potato* , cut into 1.5cm / 1/2" pieces (peel if needed)
- 100g / 3oz green beans* , trimmed then cut into 2cm / 3/5" lengths
- 2oz/ 60g baby spinach (or frozen spinach, kale or similar - can leave out)
For serving - optional:
- More parmesan
- Chopped parsley
- Crusty bread for dunking!
Instructions
- Heat oil over high heat in a very large pot.
- Add bacon, cook until starting to turn golden (~2 min) then add garlic and onion.
- Cook until onion is translucent and bacon is light golden ~ 2minutes.
- Add carrot, celery and zucchini. Stir for 1 minute to coat in flavour.
- Add crushed tomato, chicken stock, water, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, kidney beans, salt and pepper.
- Stir, bring to simmer, then place lid on and adjust heat so it's simmering gently.
- Simmer 20 minutes, then add potato and beans.
- Simmer 5 minutes, then add pasta. Cook for time per pasta packet MINUS 1 1/2 minutes.
- Remove from stove, stir through parmesan and baby spinach. Taste and adjust for salt and pepper.
- Serve, garnished with extra parmesan and a sprinkle of parsley if desired. Warm crusty bread on the side would certainly be the cherry on top!
Recipe Notes:
- Increase parmesan to 3/4 cup (75g)
- Add 2 tsp Vegeta (or other vegetable stock powder) instead of salt (then add salt at end to taste)
- (For meat free vegetarians) Use 3 anchovies (finely chopped) or 2 tsp anchovy paste - add it halfway through cooking onion, it will dissolve. Adds a good hit of umami into broth, no sign of fishiness once simmered
Nutrition Information:
More hearty soups
Life of Dozer
Dozer leading the pack, chasing a water bird!
Once again Nagy – delicious and so easy to cook. All my boys LOVED it and this counts!! Thank you. Xx
Best minestrone recipe I have cooked.
Tasty, satisfying, hearty and warming – just what soup should be!
Well done Nagi!
Great recipe. Love your website, pretty much everything turns out amazing the first time.
With this one, I was worried about adding the potatoes so late but stuck with the recipe just because I never have issues with recipe tin eats recipes. Unfortunately they were still raw when pasta was done. Maybe I cut them a bit too big.
Love, love this recipe!
But!, I’ve frozen it (in portions) and when defrosted/reheated the risoni goes to mush…does this happen to anyone else?!
I’ve tried other pastas in this but the ditalini as Nagi recommends work the best. For some reason it doesn’t swell or turn to mush like rissoni or soup pasta. Ditalini was hard to find but I found it at a small specialty grocer.
Great recipe. Thank you.
My first attempt at Minestrone. Didn’t have any potato and used frozen beans but still delicious. Used gluten free pasta.
Having great success with your recipes.
Fantastic soup. Never made minestrone previously, and this was such a beautifully balanced blend. Your recipes never fail, and this is perfect in this cold weather. Congratulations and thank you for doing the hard work .I love that the instructions are clear, easy to read and that the measurements can be trusted, as many foreign bloggers don’t even provide sufficient info about themselves, their location or what type of measurements they are using, USA and British cups and tablespoons being different sizes for example. Yeh for an Aussies, even better. And your book is great too. Every success to you. And aren’t you spoiling them overseas by doing different editions.
I love this minestrone. The first time I made it for family. I asked MIL opinion as she’s a great cook. She said it was beautiful, but a little too rich (on the tomato) and thick, for a traditional minestrone. But that strong rich thick taste is what keeps me coming back. This is one of my fav recipe tin recipes, a family favourite as well. 5 stars always. I couldn’t find ditalini at woolies/coles, but sourced it from the green grocer. I buy a few packets andI keep it especially for minestrone/soup. Don’t skip the small pasta it’s worth it.
Yum! Love this. Have made it a couple of times now.
I accidently boiled the pasta separately the first time but after trying both ways I think we actually prefer the less thick consistency.
Either way delicious!
Love your recipes.
I used a soup pack from Woolies – 2 carrots, 2 celery, 1 potato, 1 turnip, 1 parsnip, 1 onion – then added what I had left in the crisper – 1/4 savoy cabbage. I didn’t have woozie sauce so I chucked in half a beef stock cube and only used vegeta for the stock.
I used dinosaur pasta and chickpeas.
Twice as much garlic because you add that with your heart ❤️.
Everything else was the same.
Delicious!
Followed the recipe – super delicious! Will add more stock next time as it’s very thick. But another perfect recipe thank you xx
I’ve never made Minestrone Soup in my life (I’m 62) but I promised to bring Minestrone to a friends place to share with others and so looked for recipes. Picked yours and made it yesterday… tested it on my husband and a friend and me, of course. We all loved it!
Tomorrow I’ll be making a HUGE batch to bring along and hopefully everyone approves.
I love your recipes AND especially your darling boy Dozer 💜
I love this soup in winter, especially if we have had a winter cold or flu.
I cooked it today after a couple of days of feeling unwell and it was just what we needed.
Swapped the bacon out for some smoked all pork salami which gave the soup even more depth. Highly recommend this family favourite and I sometimes use it as an option for my mobile catering business. Always a winner.
This is delicious! I used silverbeet instead of spinach and had no green beans and threw in some eggplant. My partner and toddler loved it too!
I was taught how to make this 40 years ago by a chef. My tweak is that I use a pork hock – not smoked, in the pot to flavour the stock.
I gives it even more depth as does some garlic chopped in with the bacon.
Another winner! The littlies love it as is, and adults sometimes like to add a pinch of chilli flakes for extra zing. I omitted potato (for a carb averse person) and cooked the pasta separately (for the same reason), then ladled the soup over. Heaps of flavour, heaps of great veggies (I added roughly chopped mushrooms and diced eggplant. A great autumn/winter meal, served with garlic bread. Thanks!
I made the minestrone and it was so fab but my heathen Children would not eat it. So I blended it the next day and used it as pasta sauce and I tell you what, it was INSANELY DELICIOUS 🤤
Always a favourite for me this recipe is the best yet. So easy to “tweak” it a bit as many have already commented. Definitely a five star recipe.
AMAZING 🤩 love this so much
Keeper this winter xx
Great, hearty soup – love the variety of veges and my kids loved the alphabet pasta! My 6 year old found it a bit peppery but I don’t know if I was a bit over zealous with the pepper 😬
I always use a 4 bean mix plus the must have butter beans. Gives more variety and texture.