Minestrone soup brings hearty, wholesome vegetables together in a cozy one-pot meal. We enjoy this minestrone soup vegan and gluten-free by allowing our tomatoes, beans, and vegetables to shine. What’s more, this soup is cheap to make, prime for meal prep, and flexible enough to accommodate whatever vegetables you have handy!
How To Make This Recipe
Minestrone is a thick Italian soup typically made with vegetables and beans. We often use whatever seasonal vegetables we have on hand because this soup is a great way to use up those leftover vegetables. To our vegetable mix, we add two different kinds of beans to boost our fill factor. Finally, we add a helping of spring greens to round out the soup.
We prepare this minestrone soup vegan and gluten-free with a heap of beans and vegetables in lieu of pasta. If you choose to add pasta, however, we recommend adding a cup of ditalini or orzo along with two additional cups of water.
WFPB (Oil-Free) Variation
To keep this dish oil-free and WFPB-compliant, simply sauté the onions, celery, carrots and garlic in a thin layer of vegetable broth or water in lieu of olive oil. If your vegetables start to stick to the pan, just continue adding a little more broth or water as you sauté them. In this version, we highly recommend using non-stick cookware to prep these vegetables.
Prepare Broth
We begin by heating our olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Once warm, we add our onions along with a pinch of salt. We then sauté our onions, stirring frequently, until our onion is golden brown. Then, we add our carrots and celery and cook for more 5 minutes. Finally, we add another drizzle of olive oil along with garlic and bay leaves.
Sauté onions, carrots, and celery.
Next, we add in our tomatoes. We typically do this in three parts to ensure our temperature remains stable. As we add our tomatoes, we continue to stir regularly.
Stir in the tomatoes.
To finish our broth base, we add our water and potatoes along with salt and black pepper to taste. Then, we turn up the heat to bring everything to a boil.
Simmer On Low
Once our soup base begins to boil, we reduce the heat to low. From here, we allow our soup to gently simmer uncovered. After about 40 minutes, we add fresh cut green beans and continue simmering for about 20 more minutes.
Simmer uncovered until potatoes soften.
We’re now in the final stretch, so we taste the soup and gauge the consistency. To finish our soup, we add our spring greens along with the cannellini beans. We continue cooking for a few more minutes just to warm up these last ingredients.
Ready To Serve
We’re ready to serve! So, we ladle our minestrone soup into individual serving bowls. We like to garnish our soup with a shake of dairy-free parmesan or a pinch of basil. For a hearty meal, serve with crusty bread to mop up that flavorful broth.
Ladle soup into serving bowls.
Enjoy your minestrone soup! Because this tastes even better the next day, this soup is ideal for advance meal prep. Plus, it freezes and defrosts quite well.
Grab a big bowl of minestrone soup!
More savory soups:
Recipe Card for Minestrone Soup
Here’s the recipe card for Minestrone Soup. Print, share or save!
Minestrone Soup
Equipment
- Large saucepan
Ingredients
- 2 medium potatoes cubed
- 10 each green beans chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 1 stalk celery with leaves, chopped
- 1 medium carrot chopped
- 2 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 14 ounces diced tomatoes or one can
- 14 ounces cannellini beans or one can
- 10 leaves baby spinach cut into strips
- 4 cups water
- 2 each bay leaves
- 2 tablespoon olive oil extra virgin (see notes for oil-free, WFPB-compliant option)
- salt to taste
- black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Bring a large saucepan over medium heat. When hot, add the olive oil (see notes for oil-free, WFPB-compliant option) and onions with a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring frequently for 5 minutes until the onion is golden brown.
- Add carrots and celery and cook for more 5 minutes, then add another drizzle of olive oil and add garlic and bay leaves. Cook for 1 minute.
- Add the tomatoes in 3 parts, stirring the mixture frequently. Add water, potatoes and add 2 tsp of salt and black pepper to taste. Turn the heat to high.
- As soon it starts boiling, reduce heat to low and gently simmer for 40 minutes uncovered.
- After 40 minutes, add the green beans and continue simmering for more 20 minutes.
- Taste and check the consistency, it should be a thicken soup. Add the spring greens and cannellini beans. Cook for 3 minutes and serve.
