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This homemade minestrone soup is loaded with vegetables and can easily be made vegetarian.

Homemade Rustic Minestrone

Cold and flu season is not giving up.

Conspiracy theorists are blaming the government.

Sick people are sheepishly admitting they didn’t get a flu shot.

It’s a never ending cycle.

A friend of mine swears by making (and living on) garlic soup during the winter months. It’ll keep the bugs away. I’m a huge fan of garlic, but I just don’t think I want to eat plain garlic soup or garlic tea for three months out of the year.

A few months back, I was going through my grandmother’s recipe collection, organizing them the best I could (for a German woman, her recipes were very unorganized), and in the midst of all the chaos and scary German handwriting, she had what looked like a well-loved recipe for minestrone soup. The paper was all crinkled, and there were unidentifiable stains all over it. I pulled the recipe aside, typed up the recipe, since the original wasn’t very legible, and forgot all about it.

Then people started getting sick and went in search of a recipe to feed to the sick ones that still sounded appealing to me. Asked my husband for input: “chicken noodle,” he whined. “Borrrrriiinnng!” I wanted to say back to him, instead smiling and promptly began digging through my recipe collection—which I seriously need to thin out. All of my fellow recipe hoarders out there: how do you keep things managed and under control? I’ve got about a zillion recipes in my box and I am pretty sure I’ll only use about a quarter of them. Maybe I should start bundling them up and giving them away as a wedding or housewarming gifts.

Anyhow, back to my search for a soup recipe that will shut a sick person up. In the middle of a kitchen dance session (has anyone else been loving K. Flay lately?), I remembered my grandmother’s minestrone soup recipe and danced my way through the rest of the house in search of the recipe.

The base of the soup is simple: chicken (or vegetable) stock, water, potatoes, fresh thyme, and carrots. Eventually, you add some cannoli beans (aka butter beans), green beans, a zucchini or two, and spaghetti (or rice noodles for a gluten-free option), which isn’t all that fantastic in flavor. The magic comes from a paste/sauce you make and stir into the soup right at the end.

I say paste/sauce because it’s up to you how thick or think you’d like it to be. Loaded with basil and garlic, it’s just what the doctor ordered. And by doctor, I mean me, the person with zero medical training or education. I just know, or I’ve been told, that garlic is the perfect remedy for a crashing immune system.

If garlic alone isn’t enough there’s always wine, and for this somewhat rustic take on minestrone soup, I LOVE rhone blends. One of my favorite wines to pair with rustic soups is Rubystone from Ventana and at $16 is a steal considering Ventana recently closed their tasting room. Another one of my recent finds, is Morpheus from Kaleidos ($34), which is loaded with herbal flavors and notes—it really highlights the thyme used within the recipe.

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Homemade Minestrone Soup

by Rae Goldman January-31-2018

This homemade minestrone soup is loaded with vegetables and can easily be made vegetarian and gluten-free.

Ingredients

5 garlic cloves
1 1/2 cups fresh basil
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup olive oil
2 cups low sodium chicken broth
6 cups water
6, peeled and roughly chopped new potatoes
4, peeled and chopped carrots
1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 large, roughly peeled and diced fresh zucchini
1 medium, peeled and diced yellow onion
1 cup butter or lima beans
1/4 cup, or as preferred spaghetti (or a gluten-free alternative such as rice noodles)
1/2 pound, cleaned and trimmed green beans

Instructions

In the bowl of a food processor, puree the garlic, basil, salt and olive oil until smooth. Set aside.In a large pot, bring the stock and water to a boil. Add the carrots, potatoes, thyme, and salt and pepper and cook until the carrots are tender. Add the zucchini, green beans, onion, butter beans, and cook until the green beans are tender about 20 minutes. Add the spaghetti and cook until preferred desired tenderness. Add the garlic-basil mixture from before, along with salt and pepper to taste.

Details

Prep time: 5 mins Cook time: 40 mins Total time: 45 mins Yield: 6 servings