MINESTRONE SOUP | Best vegetarian soup for fall soup season + meal prep!

This minestrone soup is the best cozy vegetarian soup recipe! It’s light and healthy, layered with Italian flavors, and will fill you up in the best way possible.

It’s an Italian classic where leftover veggies from the fridge are all just tossed together to make a hearty soup. But fun fact, back in my corporate days, I used to eat minestrone soup for lunch at the Olive Garden that was across the street from my office. Today, I’m gluten-free so I’ve learned to adapt it from that pasta-filled restaurant version and put my own spin on it. And in my opinion, it tastes FAR better! Just think of it as a blend of my vegetable soup and lentil soup recipes in the sense that it’s light all around, yet hearty and filling, with a fragrant Mediterranean tomato broth.

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► TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro
00:40 Prep the mirepoix vegetables.
01:22 Dice the sweet potato, zucchini, and green beans.
02:35 Saute the mirepoix vegetables for the minestrone soup.
03:04 Add the aromatics, seasonings, and other vegetables.
03:45 Simmer the minestrone soup.
04:06 Add the zucchini and baby spinach.
04:28 Finish it off with lemon juice and chopped parsley and serve.
05:32 Taste test, flavor tips and meal prep tips.

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#minestronesoup #souprecipe #vegetarian

– I know you guys love soup
recipes as much as I do. So today, I’m gonna show
you how to make minestrone. This hearty Italian soup is a classic, yet there’s no one right way to make it, and that’s because it’s often made as a way to use up any
leftover veggies you may have and that can differ for all of us. Now in the US, Olive Garden
popularized this soup with the combination of veggies and pasta, but you don’t have to use pasta. You can use rice or even beans to make this
a full meal kind of soup. And I personally love white beans and sweet potatoes for
that extra fiber and heft. This is one nutrient-packed
soup with tons of flavor, and I think you guys are gonna have it in regular rotation this fall and winter. So let me show you how to make it. To get started, dice up one yellow onion, two ribs of celery and two medium carrots. This trio is your classic mirepoix mix that adds a delicious flavor base to so many different soups,
including this minestrone. Just dice these veggies
up about the same size so that they cook evenly,
and as they saute, they’ll soften and release
a natural sweetness that really deepens the
overall flavor of the soup. And when it comes to dicing the carrots, I always cut them in half
lengthwise, then in half again, so that there’s a flat
base to then slice them up. And that gives you nice little half moons in the soup as well. Now because we’ll cook these veggies at the same time in our pot, you can go ahead and add them together in a prep bowl right now. Then just set them aside. Minestrone soups are really adaptable to whatever vegetables you have on hand. And I have tips for making
minestrone for fall, winter, spring and summer on my website with seasonal ingredients. Now I love sweet potato for
the added nutrients it brings, as well as some heft to fill me up. And I’ll add about one
cup of diced sweet potato, though you can always
add more if you’d like. So I’ll just slice the
sweet potato into rounds, stack a few of those on top of each other, then dice them up. And with the leftover diced
sweet potato I have today, I’ll roast that after filming. And side note, I do have a separate recipe for roasted sweet potato
with the best seasoning mix. Next, I’m going to quarter
and slice one zucchini. Zucchini is packed with water and fiber, which makes the soup
feel hearty and filling without being heavy. Plus zucchini is one of those classics that really makes it taste
like a true Italian minestrone. But if you don’t have zucchini on hand, you could also swap an eggplant, which gives some similar body to the soup. For more greens and wholesomeness, add one and a half cups
of chopped green beans. I always buy trimmed
green beans at the market and then just slice them
three or four times lengthwise into bite-sized pieces. And that’s it in terms of
chopping and prepping veggies. See, it is so easy. Now to make the soup, heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Dump in your bowl of
onion, celery, and carrots, and saute those for four to five minutes or until they’re softened. (gentle music) Add four cloves of garlic and you can mince that right into the pot along with two teaspoons
of Italian seasoning. And side note, I have a recipe for
homemade Italian seasoning if you can’t find it in the store. Add one teaspoon of kosher salt and half a teaspoon of
ground black pepper. Then saute that for another 30 seconds. To give the soup delicious tomato flavor, add two 14 and a half ounce
cans of diced tomatoes. I’m using regular diced tomatoes today, but you could also use
fire-roasted tomatoes. And for my alternative to pasta, I love using two 14 and a half ounce cans of cannellini beans that I’ve
already drained and rinsed. Then add the green beans and sweet potato that we
chopped up, two bay leaves, and six to eight cups of vegetable broth depending on how brothy you’d like it. Give that a stir, bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover the pot and let
it simmer for 20 minutes or until the potatoes
are just fork tender. Alright, now it’s time
to add the zucchini. And for even more greens, I love to add two cups of baby spinach. These veggies don’t
need much time to cook, so just stir them together for
about five to seven minutes until the zucchini is softened
and the spinach is wilted. (gentle music) To finish off the soup, I love adding two tablespoons
of fresh lemon juice and a quarter cup of
chopped fresh parsley. These items really brighten up the soup and make the flavors pop. The lemon juice adds a subtle tang that cuts through the heartiness of the sweet potato and white beans while the parsley brings
a fresh herby note that makes the soup
feel light and vibrant. And trust me when I say it’s
these little finishing details that take a good soup to a great one. This minestrone soup is
one I always have on repeat for fall soup season, and I especially love to
meal prep and freeze it in individual containers as well. I think it’s the perfect midweek dinner to enjoy from a simple
reheat in the microwave when I wanna get dinner on the
table in just a few minutes. But right now, I’ll ladle
this soup into a bowl, and grate some fresh
Parmesan cheese on top. This is of course optional and you can keep it 100% dairy-free, but I personally love just a bit of that cheesy
Parmesan flavor on top. And with that, I am now ready
to dig in and take a bite. I am definitely gonna lift
the bowl up for this one, otherwise it might spill
down the front of me. But let’s take a bite. I love that it’s a light and bright soup so it doesn’t feel heavy at all, but there’s enough heartiness in it to fill you up for a full meal. So instead of my vegetable soup that is more like a side soup or a beginning soup to an entree, this definitely holds
its own as a full meal, because the beans add carbs and fiber, the sweet potato adds a little
heft and some good nutrients. So it’s just a great all around soup. I also love eating this soup
in the colder weather months when we gravitate towards comfort foods that are a little bit starchy and heavier and tend to be a little
bit more beige in color. This adds a whole bunch of color and nutrients into your diet and it’s a good balance when
you get into Thanksgiving and Christmas and cookies and all of that kind of sugary stuff to just make this one week. You can meal prep it for the week as well. And again, you just get a whole bunch of really good for you nutrients. And as I mentioned at the beginning, this is such a great soup for using up whatever
leftovers you have on hand. So feel free to adapt it and swap in whatever you
might have in your fridge. And you could even swap
out some of the beans, the white beans for other beans. If you have a can of kidney beans, you could add those instead. So just feel free to make it your own. I hope you guys enjoyed today’s
video for minestrone soup. And if you did, make sure
to give it a thumbs up. That always really helps
to support my channel. Don’t forget to tag me when you make it. I always love to see how
your versions end up. And after you’ve made
it and if you love it, it would mean the world to me
if you went over to my website and gave it a five star review. And with that, I will see
you guys in the next video. (gentle music)