Ever thought of wanting to reduce the amount of meat you eat, but afraid your food might lose in taste or not sure what to cook? Well, don’t worry, here is at least one recipe that might be not hard to make and certainly does not taste stale. Minestrone is a thick vegetable soup from rural Italian cuisine, based on similar soup dishes that have a long history on the peninsula. It can contain meat, but does not have to and we will focus on meatless minestrone, more in line with the traditional recipe of old.
To make Minestrone, all you need is water, is bit of soup stock, onions, white beans, tomatoes, carrots, celery, garlic and small pasta. Additionally, it usually features vegetables like courgettes, squash, leafy greens like kale, cavolo nero or even just spinach, but can also include other vegetables you fancy (personally, I add peas and artichokes). For seasoning, apart from salt and pepper, herbs like basil, rosemary, oregano and parsley are typical.
While a long list of ingredients, the preparation is actually quite easy, as it mostly just depends on cutting up vegetables and adding them in the proper order to make sure they are cooked, but not overcooked. For a recipe, we leave you a link to see all the steps.
Minestrone is a healthy and hearty dish and certainly a recommendation for a warm vegetable-based soup now in winter. If you find this dish interesting, we do recommend that you can also look in other similar dishes of traditional rural and lower-class cuisine, which often features mostly vegetables, while also being filling enough to fuel a peasant’s hard labour.
Source: https://www.themediterraneandish.com/simple-italian-minestrone-soup