I’m about to garnish this vegetarian minestrone soup with fresh parmesan cheese. You could be doing the same in about 40 minutes! This is a kicked up version of your mundane minestrone soup and it’s so easy to make.
I love easy, hearty recipes and this certainly fills the bill. It’s the perfect thing for a fall or winter meal. The soup has a scrumptious flavor and just a bit of spiciness from pepper flakes and smoky paprika.
Just the good stuff goes into this soup. Fresh vegetables and a great combination of spices. What takes this over the top though, is a little bit of smoked paprika. You’ll just about forget that this is a vegetarian soup because of the slight amount of smoky flavor.
If you have leftovers, this would be perfect to take to school or work in a thermos. You could also reheat it in a microwave for a minute. It’s a super healthy meal and has lots of protein, vitamins and iron and not too many calories.
Plan on making this vegetarian minestrone soup in the near future. The flavor is outstanding.
Some other soup ideas to make would be fresh vegetable provencal soup, chorizo white bean soup, or homemade tomato bisque.
If you are planning ahead, bake a loaf of your favorite bread. That would be delicious.
Tangy vegetarian minestrone soup
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 3 medium carrots, chopped
- 2 celery stalks, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1/4 tsp smoked paprika,
- 4 cups vegetable broth, I used Better than Bouillon vegetable base, 4 tsp. in 4 cups hot water
- 1 15.5 oz. can cannellini beans with liquid
- 1 14.5 oz, can diced tomatoes
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1 cup orzo, uncooked
- 3 cups fresh baby spinach, course chopped
- grated parmesan
Instructions
- Place olive oil, onion, carrots, celery and garlic into a dutch oven or stock pot and cook on medium heat 10 minutes until the vegetables are softened.
- Next, add the spices, vegetable broth, beans with their liquid, diced tomatoes and vinegar and bring to a boil.
- Add the orzo and cook 8 or 10 minutes, until the orzo is tender.
- Lower the heat, then add the spinach, and stir in to wilt, 2 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings, (paprika and salt).
- Serve hot with grated parmesan and a nice crusty bread.
Notes
- For a non-vegetarian soup, chop 2 strips of bacon into small pieces and cook this with the olive oil until nicely browned, then add the vegetables to soften. This will add 60 calories per serving to the recipe.
- Recipe adapted from Valerie Bertinelli of Food Network.
Nutrition
I was never really fond of Minestrone as I was used to Cambells canned soup. So we tried this and thought it was really excellent. We will make sure to keep the recipe so we can have it again many times in the future. It was really good, and I did not even miss any meat in it!!
Thanks Al for the nice comment.
This looks really good, but I may have to add chicken.
Hi Sandi…A little chicken wouldn’t hurt.
All you need to round out this meal is some good bread and a glass of wine. The smoked paprika adds a great layer of flavor to this easy vegetarian recipe. If you don’t have smoked paprika in your spice cabinet, you are missing out on some great meals! The first time I bought it was at TJ Maxx, in the food aisle and while I had never heard of it before, I was hooked at “smoked”. It came in a squarish can and Joe started using it in all kinds of dishes where bacon would taste good. One of the first times he used it was in the coating for pan-fried walleye, but with a couple of vegetarians in the family, we started using it in any recipe where we’d use bacon or ham.
There is sweet smoked paprike and hot smoked paprika, so be sure you know what you’re buying and the level of heat you like in your foods.