Homemade soup is a great way to combine all your favourite foods into one dish and tastes even better when using seasonal ingredients.
While plain vegetable soup is a go-to for many, this minestrone recipe by Jamie Oliver is packed with a range of textures and flavours for a bargain price of just 54p per portion.
As shared in his cookbook Jamie’s Food Revolution, Jamie said: “This tasty, nutritious minestrone is brilliant at embracing what you’ve got in your fridge.
“We make it every month and all the kids love it – it’s one of the dishes where they always go in for seconds.
“It’s super-easy to tweak according to the vegetables you have in the house – embrace the seasons but also use the best of your freezer and store cupboard, let it flex for you.”
How to make minestrone soup
A mere 30 minutes is all that’s needed to whip up Jamie’s “wholesome, hearty and flexible” recipe, and the ingredients make enough to serve eight people.
Start by chopping up all of the vegetables into even chunks, leaving out the onion, carrot, celery and garlic which should be chopped more finely. Jamie noted that tough stalks are perfect for this dish, just finely chop them and add them to the base of the soup with the onion, carrot and celery.
Put a large shallow casserole pan on medium-high heat with one tablespoon of olive oil. Add the garlic and bay leaves, followed by the onions. If using any other vegetables like leek or potato, add these in now.
Add the celery and carrots, plus any stalks, and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring regularly until softened and caramelised.
Crumble in the stock cube (or any stock you can get your hands on), and pour in the tinned tomatoes, breaking them up with a spoon.
Add one tin’s worth of water to the pot followed by the beans, juice and all, then add a pinch of sea salt and black pepper.
Chuck in the shredded/ chopped greens and sprinkle everything into the pan, topping it up with 600ml of boiling kettle water. Add the pasta – whether it be whole shapes or the broken dregs from half-empty pasta packets.
Cover and leave to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the pasta is just cooked and the soup has thickened to your liking.
Season the soup generously, give it a taste, then serve in warmed bowls with a grating of Parmesan cheese and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
