Hearty Minestrone Italian Soup Recipe

Cozy up on chilly nights with a comforting bowl of Minestrone Italian Soup – bursting with hearty vegetables, Italian seasoning, rich tomato flavors, and of course – pasta! It’s a perfect dinner idea to add to your weekly rotation.

I love to find a soup recipe that is filling and flavorful. This recipe was given to me by a friend decades ago and it’s one of our family favorites.

Why You’ll Love this Recipe

It’s is full of colorful veggies. – If you need to quickly use up a lot of veggies, this soup is perfect for that! It’s so adaptable that really any veggies can be added.

This recipe is highly customizeable. -Although I made this Minestrone Soup with ground beef, traditionally it is a vegetarian soup. Instead of the hamburger, you can add more vegetables and even canned beans if you’d like.

This soup is freezer friendly – This recipe makes a pretty good sized recipe, so it can be frozen (without the pasta is best) and pulled out to use later.

Ingredients for Minestrone Italian Soup

(A printable recipe card is included at the bottom of this post for your convenience.)

• 1 pound extra lean ground beef
• 1 cup diced onion
• 1 cup diced celery
• 1 cup diced carrots
• 1 cup diced yellow pepper
• 1 cup diced zucchini
• 1 package onion soup mix
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cups spaghetti sauce (I used a half jarof Classico brand, but you can use whatever your favorite pasta sauce is.)
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon basil
• 1/4 teaspoon thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon oregeno
• 1 cup dried small shell pasta (any shell pasta will work)

Step by Step Instructions for Minestrone Soup

1. Wash and dice all the vegetables
2. In a large stockpot or dutch oven, saute the hamburger, onions, celery, carrots, and yellow pepper until the hamburger is no longer pink and the onions are transluscent – about 6-7 minutes. Salt and pepper the mixture generously while sauteing. Drain off the grease and liquid.
3. Add in the zucchini, onion soup mix, 2 1/2 cups water, diced tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, and all spices. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down and put the lid on to simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes (stirring occasionaly to prevent anything from sticking)- or until the vegetables are tender when poked with a fork.

3. In a seperate medium sized saucepan, cook the pasta according to package directions until it is “al dente”.
4. Add the cooked pasta into the soup and stir to combine.

Variations of this Minestrone Soup Recipe

If you don’t have the exact vegetables listed for this soup, don’t stress! This soup is highly customizeable and you really can’t go wrong with other veggies. You can use potatoes, beans, squash, or whatever other vegetable might be in season at the time.

If you’d rather not have meat in this soup, just skip the hamburger and add in a can of white beans (drained) instead.

If you want to add another special touch to this Italian soup, sprinkle on some fresh parmesan cheese before serving.

If you find this soup is thicker than you prefer, just add more water until it’s the consistency you prefer.

What to serve with Minestrone Soup

We love to have soup with some sort of yummy bread – like dutch oven sour dough bread, honey oat sourdough sandwich bread, or Mom’s fluffy baking powder biscuits.

How to Freeze Minestrone Soup

This soup freezes beautifully without the pasta. That’s why I recommend cooking the pasta seperately and adding it to the soup before serving. Pasta tends to get a bit soggy after it has spent some time in the freezer!;)

To save space when freezing soup, let the soup cool completely and then ladle it into a large heavy duty zipper top bag. Lay it down flat, squeeze out the air and seal it completely. Place it on a metal cookie sheet and put it in the freezer until it freezes completely. Then you will have a nice flat bag that stacks easily into your freezer space.

Other Soup Recipes You Will Enjoy

• Bring the restaurant to your home kitchen with this Olive Garden chicken gnocchi soup.
• This creamy tortellini soup with sausage and spinach is so very delicious!
• This old fashioned potato soup recipe is one of our family favorites and even more special with this special dumpling recipe.

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