Vegan Minestrone Soup

Our Vegan Minestrone Soup is a superb meal for the whole family. It's easy to make, you only need one pot, it's cooked with mostly pantry ingredients, it's packed full of flavour and of course, it's healthy! We cook our minestrone soup with a combination of cannellini beans, red lentils and wholewheat ditalini pasta. Yummy right?

This soup is one of our favourite meals for meal-prepping. It freezes well and it can last in the fridge for around four days. During the week you just need to heat it up in a pan or microwave and you've got yourself covered.

We know how important is the regular consumption of pulses, so this recipe is a delicious way of getting your pulses into your diet. You can change the pulses we use in this recipe for any type of beans or lentils. The fresh veggies we use for this recipe are carrots and tomatoes. We add celery when we have some in the fridge, and you can add any vegetable that you have in the fridge. Zucchini or leek would work great for this minestrone recipe too. We want to make this recipe simple so we can cook it with just a few ingredients that we normally have at home.

Why is this soup perfect for a family meal?

We have a 14-month-old toddler, and some days we have no time or energy to spend an hour in the kitchen cooking or dirtying different pots and pans. If you are busy parents like us, you will love this recipe as much as we do. You can have a delicious and comforting bowl of soup in less than 30 minutes that will be a family hit.

For me and my husband, we add chilli flakes and some chilli oil before serving, so we don't have to cook the soup in two different pans. As well, we normally don't add a lot of salt in our food, which is great for our son, but if you like your food a bit saltier, you can always add it at the end, after serving your little one's bowl. You can blend the minestrone soup for your toddler or kids if they like it better, or if you've got some fussy eaters at home.

Tips

• If you want to use overnight soaked beans, make sure you cook them for 30 minutes in boiling water before adding them to the minestrone.
• Use homemade stock. Here you have our easy homemade stock recipe. It tastes better and it's healthier. If you are cooking for the whole family, including toddlers, we strongly recommend using homemade stock. Store-bought stock is normally high in salt and just doesn't taste the same.
• Cook your minestrone with wholewheat pasta as it's healthier. Refined pasta contains high amounts of sugar. We love dilatini pasta for this soup. Every time Astra travels to Italy for work (which happens quite often) he will always bring some packets back with him.
• Once the soup is cooked, transfer the leftovers into a cold container to stop the pasta from overcooking.
• Squeeze some lemon on top before serving.

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5 from 3 votes

Minestrone Soup

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Cook Time20 minutes mins

Course: Soup

Cuisine: Italian

Keyword: minestrone, Soup, Vegan

Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 onion finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves crushed
• 1 inch piece of ginger inely cut or grated.
• 2 fresh tomatoes finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon tomato pure
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• ½ teaspoon cumin
• ½ teaspoon turmeric
• ½ cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• 2 litres vegetable stock
• 2 carrots finely chopped
• 50 gr red lentils
• 100 gr dilatini pasta
• 100 gr cannellini beans
• 50 gr spinach
• lemon juice to squeeze on top before serving
• salt to taste

Instructions

• Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a large pot on medium heat (we use our dutch oven for this recipe). Add the onion, cook for a couple of minutes until softened and add the garlic and ginger. Cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
• Add the fresh tomatoes and the tomato pure. Stir and cook for a few minutes before adding the spices. Add the coriander, thyme, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon and black pepper. Stir until fragrant and add the chopped carrots and the stock.
• Bring the water to a boil, add the lentils and pasta and reduce the heat to a simmer. When the pasta and lentils are half cooked, add the beans.
• When the pasta and lentils are cooked turn of the heat and add the spinach. Leave the soup to rest for a few minutes until the spinach wilts. Squeeze a bit of lemon juice on top and serve.

Notes

For a spicy hit, add chilli oil before serving, or chilli flakes.

If your toddler doesn't enjoy big chunks, you can blend the minestrone soup before serving. We mash the beans with a fork for Luca and remove any big skins from them.