I had wonderful family time on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and then packed off to the mountains for a couple of days with my hubby so he could test out his new Christmas present – some snow tubes that promised to go FAST! Now we’re back home and recovering from our New Year’s party! Sometimes I feel like I need a vacation from the Christmas/New Year’s vacation. But enough about me. You’re really here to read about the most amazing minestrone recipe ever, so let’s get to that. This is one of my favorite and most-often-served recipes, probably because it’s the embodiment of what everyone wants on cold winter days such as these: hearty, healthy, tasty, and versatile. And boy, oh boy is it versatile. If you’re vegetarian, you can just omit the chicken sausage and substitute vegetarian broth. If you aren’t a vegetarian, you can choose any flavored sausage that you think would suit this soup (chicken and roasted garlic & chicken and sun dried tomato are my favorite, but I’m sure there are many others that would appeal!). If you are accustomed to seeing noodles in your minestrone, go ahead and add some pre-cooked noodles to the end of this dish (just beware: if you refrigerate it overnight with the noodles inside, they will absorb most of your broth and your soup will become stew!). I prefer to skip the noodles and to serve this with a crusty bread instead.
I got my inspiration for this dish from another book, but I have made so many modifications that I think that I can now call the recipe my own.
recipe by ME! :)
Ingredients
Instructions
- In a large pot, heat oil until hot. Add onions, celery, carrots, and potatoes and stir to combine. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring often, until vegetables are softened.
- Add all the spices and stir to combine.
- Add the tomatoes and broth and stir. Allow to come to a simmer.
- While your soup is coming to a simmer, saute your sausages. I like mine browned on both sides, but you really just need to make sure that they are cooked through.
- Add the sausages and the kidney beans, green beans, and pearl barley to the soup. If you want, you can add some of LeAnn's dumplings as well (note that they absorb some of your broth as they swell, so you may need to add more broth to compensate for that!). Simmer for 20 minutes.
- Either add cooked noodles now or serve alongside a crusty bread.
- Top with freshly shaved Parmesan cheese.
11 responses so far ↓
1 Rachel // Jan 2, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Yum! I love minestrone. I’m so going to make this! Thanks Paula!
2 Shirley Madsen // Jan 3, 2010 at 10:56 am
This will be our dinner after I finish off the ham and bean soup I made on New Year’s Day.
3 Carolyn // Jan 7, 2010 at 8:37 pm
I know I’m supposed to comment on the food, but wow, those pictures are beautiful! That lens on your camera is amazing plus you are a very skilled food photographer.
4 paulawong // Jan 7, 2010 at 10:49 pm
Carolyn – you are very welcome to comment on the food, the photos, or just about anything.
Thanks so much for your compliment on my photos. 
5 Lizatouille // Jan 10, 2010 at 11:42 am
Yes, this minestrone looks tasty. But can if feed MILLIONS?
6 bridget // May 10, 2010 at 5:08 pm
i’m way late on commenting on this! i thought i had left a comment a while back but while looking for a soup recipie saw that i hadn’t! shame on me! i used this with my after school program earlier this year but did it kinda vegetarian. (i used the chicken and beef broths but left out the sausage) about 150 kids ate this soup over the course of a week and they all loved it!!! even my staff loved it! if you need to feed a crowd make this!
7 Yadsia @ShopCookMake // Sep 22, 2011 at 5:29 pm
I’ve never made minestrone at home. I should try this.
8 deb burow // Oct 15, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Looks yummy. Where is the print button, I don’t seem to see it on your recipes on the blog any longer? May be there and I am looking right past it.
9 Paula // Oct 15, 2011 at 5:24 pm
Deb – now that I have the zip list recipe feature on newer recipes, it comes with its own print feature, so I disabled the other print feature. Of course, now I can’t figure out how to re-enable it again.
10 Deanna // Nov 20, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Loved this soup. It made a lot, we ate on it for a week and I got tired of it by day 5, but what a money saver!!!! It was really good, next time I’ll just halve the recipe!!
11 angela // Jan 6, 2013 at 5:48 pm
I have been making this minestrone for a year now since I found it on Pinterest, my family LOVES it! Only difference I do is lentils instead of barley, and I use double the spices. Love Love Love!
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