Minestrone Soup
I’ll bet that Minestrone soup has been made nearly as many different ways as there are people who have made it. This is an old time Italian classic. It’s origins date back to centuries BC when the poor would gather whatever vegetables they could and boil them in water to make a soup.
Centuries later animal broth, mostly beef or chicken started to be used.
Then in the 16th century when potatoes and tomatoes were introduced from the western world they too became a staple to Minestrone.
Out of all the ways to make it this is the one we have settled on. We really like it and I’ll bet that you will too.
Minestrone soup is a great comfort supper on a cold night. You can make a big batch and freeze it in a bunch of zip lock bags to be available for a weeknight nuke it no brainer, it’s easy and its tastes great.
How To make your Minestrone Soup
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp. olive oil
- 2 large stalks of celery coarsely chopped
- 1 medium sized onion coarsely chopped
- 2 carrots sliced in about 3/8″ slices. Just eyeball it. Or, if you prefer those little cleaned and peeled ones just cut up 6-8 of them into 3 pieces each.
- 6 large cloves garlic coarsely chopped.
- 4-5 links Italian sausage (hot or mild it’s up to you) with the skin removed.
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. black pepper
- 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional)
- 1 qt. low sodium chicken broth
- 1 qt. water
- 1 28 oz. can good quality Italian Roma tomatoes, crushed.
- 1 28 oz. can cannelloni beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 large potato cleaned and cut into 1/2″ size cubes
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/2 teaspoon dried sage or 6 leaves of fresh (chopped)
- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese cut into small chunks
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese. plus some for garnish.
- 1 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves or 1/2 cup dried[/b]
Instructions
- Put a 6-8 qt. stock pot on at medium high and add the olive oil
- Coarsely chop up the celery, garlic, onion and carrots.
- Add the veggies in the pot, add the seasonings and stir it all together.
- Remove the skins from the sausage, add it to the pot and break it up.
- Stir often and when the sausage has all turned brown add the chicken broth, water, tomatoes, the cannelloni beans and the parmesan cheese.
- Mix it all together and bring it up to a simmer then reduce the heat low enough to maintain the simmer.
- Then comes the potatoes if you’re using them instead of the pasta or gnocchi
- Stir it regularly as it cooks for 30 minutes. (or more if you have the time)
- About 8 minutes before serving add the pasta or about 5 for the gnocchi.
- A couple of minutes before serving add the parsley.
- Serve it up! Garnish with some grated parmesan. Bon Appetit! Some chianti and some of poppop’s easy homemade bread
