During quarantine, one of the things I’ve struggled with most is maintaining a balanced diet. With prolonged periods between grocery store trips, I often find myself going through my fresh produce quickly and leaving myself with grains, canned goods and nonperishables for weeks. Minestrone soup is a great way to make sure you’re getting a proper veggie intake — and it freezes and reheats well, meaning you won’t have to rely on eating canned beans every night.
Hannah Jackson / Daily Nexus
Minestrone is great if you have any fresh vegetables you’re worried about going bad; anything seasonal is a great addition. For this batch, everything I bought came straight from the Isla Vista Food Co-op.
Ingredients:
- 5 stalks of celery
- 3 carrots (or 15 baby carrots)
- 1 yellow onion
- 2 medium potatoes
- ⅓ lb green beans
- 1 can of cannellini beans (15.5 oz)
- 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 can of diced tomatoes in juice (14.5 oz)
- 4 cloves of garlic
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
- Pasta (separate)
Directions:
- In a large pot, heat two tablespoons of olive oil and one tablespoon of butter over medium-high heat. Add in the diced yellow onion and stir for about three minutes, until translucent.
- Then, add the chopped celery and carrots to form a mirepoix, with salt and pepper to taste. Make sure to stir frequently so the onions don’t burn.
- After three to five minutes, or whenever the colors of the carrots and celery begin to brighten, lower the heat to medium-low and add in your potatoes (I cut them into medium-sized cubes) or any other dense, slow-cooking veggie you want to add.
- Next, you’re going to add fast-cooking vegetables, which I save for the end so they don’t overcook or burn.
- Cut your green beans into roughly half-inch pieces and dice your zucchini. Add these, along with your minced garlic, to the pot.
- Now, pour six cups of broth into the pot and bring the heat back up to medium-high. Strain and rinse the cannellini beans and add them into the mix.
- Then, add your canned tomatoes and make sure you add the juice as well, to give the broth a more robust flavor.
- Finally, add a tablespoon of Italian seasoning and salt and pepper to taste.
- Give the pot a quick stir and wait for the soup to come to a boiling point. Once it begins to bubble, place a lid over the pot, bring the heat down to low and let the soup simmer for 30 minutes.
- Around 15 minutes in, I made a pot of macaroni noodles. You could have added a pasta of your choice along with the cannellini beans, but I chose to make a separate pot since it’s such a large portion, and I didn’t want to freeze pasta for later.
Hannah Jackson / Daily Nexus
