This minestrone soup recipe is a delicious version of the classic Italian vegetable soup. Serve it with crusty bread for an easy vegetarian meal!
Today, I have two goals: to bake a batch of Christmas cookies and to make a pot of minestrone soup. To me, the two go hand-in-hand. After I spend an afternoon baking (and eating!) something sweet, I want nothing more than a warming, nourishing pot of soup for dinner at night.
I love this minestrone soup recipe in particular because it’s so satisfying, but still light and fresh. Onions, carrots, and celery add depth of flavor to its herb-flecked tomato broth, and starchy beans and pasta make it nice and thick. I toss in green beans for texture, and, as a final finishing touch, I top it off with fresh parsley and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. It’s super easy and flavorful, and all you need is crusty bread to make it a meal. Cookies for dessert are optional, but highly recommended.
Minestrone Soup Recipe Ingredients
Here’s what you’ll need to make this minestrone soup recipe:
- Onion, carrot, and celery – These vegetables create the aromatic base of the soup, known as a soffritto in Italian. You’ll sauté them in olive oil before adding the other ingredients.
- Garlic – It adds additional depth of flavor to the soup. You’ll stir it in after cooking the onions, carrots, and celery so that it doesn’t burn.
- Diced tomatoes – For sweet, tangy flavor.
- Green beans – They add vibrant color and crisp-tender texture to the soup.
- White or kidney beans – Navy beans, cannellini beans, and red kidney beans all work great!
- Vegetable broth – Use store-bought, or make your own.
- Bay leaves, oregano, and thyme – My easy version of a homemade Italian seasoning! These dried herbs add so much complexity to this simple minestrone soup.
- Small pasta – Think elbows, little shells, orecchiette, or ditalini. I like to cook it right in the soup so that it releases its starches into the broth.
- Fresh parsley – For garnish! Fresh basil would be excellent here too.
- Red pepper flakes – Optional, for heat.
- And Parmesan cheese – This salty, umami garnish takes the soup over the top.
Find the complete recipe with measurements below.
Variations
If you don’t have these exact ingredients on hand, don’t worry. As Alice Waters writes in The Art of Simple Food, minestrone soup is endlessly customizable. Part of the beauty of this recipe is that you can change it up to use what’s in season or what you have on hand. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Substitute chopped fennel for the celery.
- Replace the green beans with diced zucchini or yellow squash, or use a mix of all three.
- In the summer, use diced fresh Roma tomatoes instead of canned ones.
- Stir in fresh greens, like spinach or kale, near the end of the cooking time.
- No pasta? Swap in a quick-cooking grain like pearled farro or barley.
- Instead of using canned beans, cook your own! Then, use the aromatic cooking liquid in place of some or all of the vegetable broth in this soup.
Let me know what variations you try!
Minestrone Soup Serving Suggestions
This recipe is best right after it’s made, as the pasta absorbs the broth as it sits in the leftover soup. If you want to make it ahead of time, I recommend cooking the pasta separately and stirring it into the soup as you’re ready to eat. Alternatively, you can skip the pasta and add an extra cup of beans to the soup. Prepared this way, the soup will keep well for up to four days in the fridge.
When you’re ready to eat, top each bowl with a sprinkle of parsley, red pepper flakes, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese. If you’re vegan, feel free to skip the cheese, or garnish your bowl with a scoop of vegan pesto instead. (Non-vegans take note: regular pesto is also a great topping for minestrone soup!).
Serve the soup with good crusty bread and call it a day, or round out the meal with a side salad. This arugula salad, this beet salad, and this pear salad would all be fantastic with this minestrone soup. Enjoy!
More Favorite Soup Recipes
If you love this minestrone soup, try one of these delicious soup recipes next:
- Butternut Squash Soup
- Tortellini Soup
- Cabbage Soup
- Many-Veggie Vegetable Soup
- Best Lentil Soup
- Instant Pot Lentil Soup
- Tomato Basil Soup
- Or any of these 33 Best Soup Recipes!
Minestrone Soup
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 medium yellow onion, diced
- 2 medium carrots, chopped
- 2 celery ribs, thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon sea salt, plus more to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 3 garlic cloves, grated
- 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes
- 1½ cups cooked white beans or kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 cup chopped green beans
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- ¾ cup small pasta, elbows, shells, orecchiette
- ½ cup chopped fresh parsley
- Red pepper flakes
- Grated Parmesan cheese, optional, for serving
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, carrots, celery, salt, and several grinds of black pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes, until the vegetables begin to soften.
- Add the garlic, tomatoes, beans, green beans, broth, bay leaves, oregano, and thyme. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
- Stir in the pasta and cook, uncovered, for 10 more minutes, until the pasta is cooked through.
- Season to taste and serve with parsley, red pepper flakes, and parmesan, if desired.
This recipe is SO SO good!! I am making it for the 4th time today. My only change is I use crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce instead of diced.
Let me say that I cook and bake a lot. This MINESTRONE SOUP, rates the best soup I have ever made. The only thing that I changed was I added one very, very small shake of cayenne pepper and 2 parmigiano reggiano rinds along with 3/4 C. orecchiette pasta. Simmered it very slowly for a few hours. This is now my ‘go to’ site for recipes. Wish I could leave a picture …… please add that option for future posts.
Followed exact recipe. Perfect minestrone.
This is the most delicious soup I’ve made. My family loves it and it tastes better on day two.
Hi Carlene, I’m so glad your family has loved it!
Delicious & easy! Approved by non vegan husband
I’m so glad he enjoyed it!
So delicious! I used chicken broth because it’s what I had. Really came out great! Thank you!
I’m so glad you loved it!
I love this recipe. Have made it a few times. I was wondering, does it freeze well? I am going on a camp trip and wanted to freeze it for my cooler and then heat and eat. I always add the pasta separate.
yep, it freezes great!
I am obsessed with this soup and have eaten it 4 times per week for 5 weeks now! I only made a couple of adjustments, I swap the pasta for extra beans since it goes soggy over the 4 days and I don’t want to cook fresh pasta every night (I use two tins of cannelini beans) and I add a couple of tbsps of tomato puree once I’ve fried off the veg at the beginning for a richer, thicker broth. Such a simple, easy recipe that tastes fantastic, thank you!
My Italian boyfriend loved it 🙂 thanks!
This was a pretty good soup to make. Fairly easy-to-find ingredients. I chopped my veggies very finely and added some extra spices per my husbands request for a “kick” (a little paprika and chipotle chili pepper). I cooked the veggies on their own for an extra ten minutes to allow the flavours to fully merge before adding in pasta. Turned out delicious!
Loved it! Served it with sourdough and vegan parm.
Only modifications were adding red pepper flakes, some additional broth, and included a whole can of beans (a bit more than the suggested)
Hi Annabel, I’m so glad you loved the soup!
This soup was incredibly good. The spices brought so much flavor. My family loved it and I will be making this a family staple.
I’m so glad everyone loved it!
Excellent-added GF macaroni and worked out so tasty but what can I add to thicken the liquid part a bit-I doubled recipe and a bit too juicy from diced tomatoes. Thx again-a keeper!!
I would say to thicken put a large potato in. That starch will naturally thicken it but not too much. Par cook the potato for 10 minutes before adding to the soup, then before serving, discard the potato.
Or use potato flakes
Potatoes. Or at the very end cook the pasta in the broth. Or some white bread without the crust.
Excellent recipe.
Easy to make and delicious.
I used more stock because the veggies and pasta really absorbed a lot of the liquid, so have extra on hand.
Hi Anne, I’m so glad you enjoyed the soup!
hi! thank you so much for this recipe. I’m a complete beginner in the kitchen and this was one of the first recipes I made that turned out good. I substituted the pasta for farro and I used tomato paste instead of diced tomatoes but it was still wonderful and delicious. Thank you again
Hi Sarah, I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
On the whole very very good. The Vedgetables still a little crunchy which I like but next time I will put less tomato
The soup is delicious but it is very thick, not soupy. Should I just add more broth when I serve it.?
Making mine now. Definitely you can more broth.
I had the same issue
Don’t add the pasta to the pot,
I add it when serving.
You could add another cup or 2 of vegetable broth, but you will need to adjust the herbs salt and pepper
Great suggestion. Thanks.
yep!
Delicious
Delicious ❤️❤️
So glad you loved it, Tania!
After reading the reviews I expected a much better outcome. We love minestrone soup, but this was pretty ordinary. Sort of “meh”. I made it yesterday exactly as the recipe specified. My husband sent the bowl back only half of soup.eaten. Today I’ve got it in the slow cooker with some chicken bouillon, extra oregano and thyme, and a Parmesan cheese rind. Hopefully these steps will help.