I certainly can’t take any credit for this recipe: Jamie’s Minestrone Recipe.

I believe this recipe is kickass though, I’ve already made it three times since only recently acquiring it. A few weeks ago I had some canned Minestrone soup at a friends house and realized it’s a taste I’ve been missing for some time. In fact, every time I’ve had that style of soup I’ve liked it, but I forgot all about Minestrone soup for many years until now. I looked at the ingredients on the can and I was like damn dude that’s a ton of salt. As is the case with many other things, I figured you can make it yourself and you can probably make it better. I looked up this Allrecipes.com page and tried it out, in the case of a few recipes I’ll post from time to time, even though they originate from somewhere else sometimes it’s good to see someone actually make them and provide the results.

I did everything on the recipe list but I changed a few things:

  • Summer Squash instead of Zucchini
  • 2 Cans of 33% less sodium chicken broth
  • 2 Cans of red kidney beans
  • Half a box of frozen spinach
  • More like 2 cups of seashell pasta and I chucked them right in the simmering pot towards the end
  • 1 Can of tomato puree, a few fresh tomatoes peeled (another time I used one can of tomato puree and one can of chopped tomatoes)
  • Fresh green beans

Every time I’ve made this soup I’m surprised at just how good it is. Loaded with vegetables and the broth tastes so rich like a beef stew without the beef. I could see kids eating this with some bread and butter. I would have eaten this as a kid and I hated vegetables when I was very young. Use fresh or frozen vegetables in place of canned ones–the salt will start to add up if you use a lot of canned veggies.

Just after adding the tomatoes...

I followed the simple instructions to a T, although each time I ended up adding some more water. Otherwise it turns into vegetable chili, which is OK, but I like a lot of the dark broth in this soup. If possible, don’t skimp on the kidney beans or the spinach, besides tasting good in this soup they help give the broth a nice dark color. This soup especially good with bread. Once you have all the ingredients ready, it takes about a half hour to cut everything up and another hour to cook.

Good Stuff