Minestrone Soup
Minestrone Soup is a hearty and flavorful Italian soup made with a variety of vegetables, beans, and pasta. It is a comforting and nourishing meal that is perfect for a cold winter day.
Minestrone Soup is a hearty and flavorful Italian soup made with a variety of vegetables, beans, and pasta. It is a comforting and nourishing meal that is perfect for a cold winter day.
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 3/4 cup chopped onion
- 1 1/2 cups cubed potatoes
- 4 tablespoons margarine
- 1/4 cup chopped celery
- 1/2 cup chopped carrots
- 1 (19 ounce) can cannellini beans
- 1/2 cup shredded cabbage
- 1 (14.5 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
- 1 quart chicken broth
- 2 tablespoons dried parsley
- 1/2 cup elbow macaroni
- Carbohydrate 26.4330511964985 g
- Cholesterol 616.999998708468 mg
- Fat 132.336335728867 g
- Fiber 2.4373136023434 g
- Protein 157.612991014402 g
- Saturated Fat 37.6192866740653 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (934g)
- Sodium 745.838249054227 mg
- Sugar 23.9957375941551 g
- Trans Fat 11.0077096647769 g
- Calories 1966 calories
Step-by-step
- Melt butter or margarine in a heavy pot over medium heat. Add onion, celery, and carrots; saute for a few minutes.
- Add beans, cabbage, tomatoes, tomato paste, potato, stock, garlic, parsley, and salt to the pot. Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat. Simmer for approximately 1 hour until vegetables are barely tender.
- Add pasta, and simmer for 30 minutes more. Correct seasoning, and serve hot with grated cheese.
Long-simmered vegetable soups frequently collapse into a homogenous mash when root vegetables are added simultaneously with delicate brassicas. Many home cooks follow instructions blindly, allowing potatoes and cabbage to boil for an identical duration until the starch completely breaks down and destroys the textural integrity of the broth. By sweating the onions, celery, and carrots over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed Dutch oven for five minutes before introducing the liquids, the aromatic base builds sufficient foundation without burning the garlic.
Substitutions alter the chemistry of the pot significantly. Using margarine instead of butter removes necessary milk solids that aid in browning the initial mirepoix, which ultimately mutes the depth of the finished stock. Furthermore, introducing elbow macaroni thirty minutes before the end of the simmers transforms the small pasta shapes into a mushy paste because commercial dried pasta requires only nine to eleven minutes of boiling water exposure to reach an al dente state. If you plan to scale this yield down from six servings to two, reduce the simmering times proportionally or the potatoes will dissolve entirely into the broth.
Storing leftover minestrone requires immediate cooling to below 40 degrees Fahrenheit within two hours to prevent bacterial growth in the dense bean and potato mixture. Reheating portions individually on the stovetop preserves the remaining structural integrity of the vegetables better than blasting the entire pot in a microwave.
