Minestrone Soup

Once we went to an Italian restaurant and we ordered this soup. I fell in love with this soup for its wholesomeness. It is so good that we could have it everyday. It is a good replacement for a light and healthy dinner.

Look who is excited to have this soup :) i just blended and gave it to her. She loved it.

There is no single recipe for minestrone which make it even more special and unique in its way. Its made with a lot of vegetable and usually topped with few spoons of rice or pasta. Typically this recipe calls for onion, celery, carrots, tomatoes, bean and stock. But I used what I have at home.

Preparation time : 10 minutes

cooking time : 20 to 30 minutes (depending on the serving size)

Serves - 4

Ingredients

:

• Extra virgin olive oil - 2 tbsp
• Diced onion -  1 cup 
• Chopped vegetable - 3 cups ( 1 celery stick, 1 carrot, 1 medium potato, 10 broccoli florets)
• Minced garlic - 1 clove
• spinach leaves - 2 cups
• Basil leaves - 1/2 cup
• tomatoes juiced - 2 - 3 tomatoes
• vegetable stock - 3 cups
• chickpea (channa) - 1 cup 
• pasta (spaghetti) - broken 10 sticks
• salt and pepper to taste

Direction

Chop and dice all vegetable, cook the soaked chickpea and juice 3 tomatoes.

Heat oil in a tall pot and add onions, carrots , celery and season it with a pinch of salt. Once the onion caramelizes add in potatoes, broccoli and garlic.

After sauteing for about a minute add in tomato juice, vegetable stock, water if necessary, salt, pepper and cook it covered on a medium heat for 10 minutes. Then add in the chickpea and pasta and again cover and cook for 15 minutes or until the pasta is cooked.

Finally for garnishing add in the spinach leaves (whole/chopped as per your wish) and basil leaves. Give it a minute or so for it to get cooked. Switch off and serve the wholesome awesome

Note:

• Any vegetable can be used as per season or preference. 
• Juicing the tomato rather than dicing it will give a little richness to the texture.
• Basil leaves is important. 
• If you do not have vegetable stock, its okay to replace it with water. you will still end up having hearty and tasty soup.
• Any kind of small pastas can be used. I just had little spaghetti at home so i broke them into to small pieces and used it. 
• make sure not to over cook the vegetable. Chunkiness of vegetable is to experience while having the soup.

Enjoy and Happy cooking!