This vibrant garden green minestrone soup is peak summer eating. It’s full of seasonal vegetables and loved by all.
So earlier this year you found yourself at home on some level of lockdown and decided that now was the time to plant a garden. While we were cooking comfort food, experimenting with tie-dye and home schooling, we also started seeds.
Now, mid-July, many of us are reaping the benefits of that spring planting. I’m getting tons of messages from you asking how to deal with all the herbs-gone-wild (make pesto), baskets of greens (toss this salad) and cucumbers (pickles, duh).
Today’s recipe embraces midsummer produce in a vibrant soup – the garden green minestrone.
A Simple Garden Green Minestrone
Like most soups, this recipe can be easily adapt to suit your families’ tastes. Its rustic style lends itself easily to accommodating their favourite vegetables. And if you want to lean a little heavier on the pasta and lay off the beans, that’s entirely your call too.
For this garden green minestrone, use the best local produce you can get your hands on. It IS July after all; there’s no excuse.
It may be tempting to clean out the crisper drawer of the refrigerator and throw in all the shrived bits, but if you choose the sweetest celery, baby zucchini and fresh-picked basil, your soup will surpass any you’ve ever had before.
Don’t worry about perfect cuts for your vegetables. This is home cooking at its finest, and there’s no one to impress.
In fact, get the kids in the kitchen to help shell peas and snap beans. They’ll be more excited to eat a bowl of garden green minestrone if they’ve helped to prepare the soup.
PS: If you’re looking for more of a classic Minestrone, with tomatoes, carrots and corn, I’ve got that recipe, too. I keep that one on the back burner for September/October meals.
Hot Tip: For a real flavour punch, finish the soup with a spoonful of homemade chimichurri or pesto. Find recipes for pesto with parsley, basil, or oregano.
This vibrant soup is peak summer eating. It's full of seasonal vegetables and loved by all.
Chop the white ends of the green onions about half way up the stalk. Reserve the green tips for soup garnish or another use. Chop celery into ¼- inch slices. Dice zucchini evenly. Finely mince the garlic.
In a large pot over medium heat, warm the olive oil. Add the green onion, celery, green beans and zucchini. Sauté the vegetables for 4-5 minutes; stirring occasionally, until softened. Add the garlic and bay and cook for an additional minute.
Pour in the vegetable stock and the chopped herbs. Bring soup to a boil over high heat, then reduce and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.
Add the beans, fresh green peas, cooked pasta shells and salt. Simmer for another 2-3 minutes until peas turn bright green.
Remove from heat and add the fresh pepper and lemon juice. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Ladle into bowls and garnish with Parmesan cheese and additional basil.
Notes
The soup is vegan if you leave off the Parmesan cheese at the end. Otherwise, it’s vegetarian and gluten free.
Make the soup but leave out the pasta. Season the soup and set aside to cool. (Don’t worry if the vegetables are still slightly al-dente.)
Portion the soup into freezer-friendly containers (I often use clean mason jars, leaving a good inch of head space), cover and label.
Freeze for up to three months.
To re-heat:Thaw soup overnight in the refrigerator, then reheat gently in a pot. Add a cup of broth or water (as some may have been absorbed over time) and bring to a boil. Add cooked pasta shells and fresh basil. Serve hot.
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.
Frozen peas and carrots add heft to minestrone soup. You can boost the veg load of a basic chicken noodle soup with some frozen carrots, onions, or corn. There's also no shame in adding more vegetables to vegetable and barley soup. Lastly, if you plan to buy vegetables to add to your soup, look toward the leafy greens.
Made with lots of vegetables, greens and various beans, this dish can provide you with super nutrients that slow aging and help you stay fit. Minestrone has always been a symbol of traditional Italian cuisine and the Mediterranean diet. Made with vegetables, greens and beans, it is a super-healthy mixture.
Zuppa Toscana – Olive Garden Copycat (VIDEO) Zuppa Toscana is Olive Garden's most popular soup. This one-pot, homemade Zuppa Toscana recipe is hearty and loaded with Italian sausage, kale, bacon and potatoes.
The word minestrone, meaning a thick vegetable soup, is attested in English from 1871. It is from Italian minestrone, the augmentative form of minestra, 'soup', or more literally 'that which is served', from minestrare, 'to serve', and cognate with administer as in 'to administer a remedy'.
If a soup is tasting bland in the bowl, consider adding acid rather than salt. A squeeze of lemon or lime, or a dash of yogurt or sour cream can add brightness to the bowl.
"If your broth is lacking in savory richness, try adding roasted onion, tomato paste, mushrooms, seaweed, soy sauce, or miso. These ingredients add umami flavor and depth to broth," she says. The choice of ingredient depends on the recipe, though.
If you are adding meat to a soup, sear or brown it in a sauté pan before you add it to the soup. This adds a deeper savory flavor to the whole soup. This trick is especially useful for things like chicken and sausage, which can sometimes get bland and rubbery while floating in a brothy soup.
Flavor the base: We add Italian seasoning and tomato paste to the aromatics and warm them up to bring the seasonings back to life. You could use fresh herbs like thyme or rosemary, or even add a Parmesan rind for more flavor.
Minestrone is one of the cornerstones of Italian cuisine, and may even be more widely dispersed and enjoyed throughout Italy than pasta. The soup was initially made from small things leftover from previous meals, combined so as not to waste perfectly good food.
All soups and stews must have three major components in order to be tasty: an undercurrent liquid, aromatics, and volumizing ingredients. In every case, they're layered together until all of the flavors meld together in a harmonious, silky balance.
Alternatively, mix a thickening agent like arrowroot powder with cold water and stir it into the soup when it's almost done cooking. Cornstarch will do the trick, too.
Cornstarch. Cornstarch is the most common thickening agent used in the industry. It is mixed with water or juice and boiled to make fillings and to give a glossy semi-clear finish to products. Commercial cornstarch is made by soaking maize in water containing sulphur dioxide.
cooking sauce or soup. Arrowroot starch thickens very quickly and it is unnecessary to bring the mixture to a boil for it to work. Cornstarch, on the other hand, requires heating the mix- ture to a boil to fully thicken the mixture and to avoid any “starchy” taste or texture in the fin- ished product.
Whisk together equal parts cornstarch (or arrowroot) and water or broth, then whisk it into the pot of soup. A good ratio to get to a pleasant thickness without your soup tasting goopy or heavy is one tablespoon. slurry to 4 cups of soup.
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