As the mercury begins to plummet, there’s nothing quite as cosy as a piping hot bowl of homemade soup.
Delivering a comforting punch, brimming with nutritious veggies, Jamie Oliver’s spin on the classic minestrone is ‘wholesome, hearty and flexible”. Easily adaptable, this soup provides the perfect opportunity to utilise whatever you’ve got lingering in your fridge.
A firm favourite in the Oliver household, the chef said: “We make it every month and all the kids love it it’s one of the dishes where they always go in for seconds.” The soup, teeming with nutrients including 6.9 grams of protein and a mere 148 calories per serving, can be whipped up in under just half an hour, making it an excellent choice for brisk autumn evenings, reports the Express.
The celebrity chef encourages home cooks to take joy in never being wasteful. For this recipe, he said: “This soup is great for using up odds and ends from your dried pasta packets. Pile whatever you’ve got in a clean tea towel, then give it a good bash so it’s all about the same size.”
Serve alongside fresh crusty bread and a light dusting of Parmesan for a truly delectable dinner.
Jamie Oliver’s minestrone soup.
Ingredients
- One clove of garlic
- Two small onions
- Olive oil
- Two fresh bay leaves
- Two carrots
- Two sticks of celery
- Two large handfuls of seasonal greens, such as savoy cabbage, curly kale, chard
- One vegetable stock cube
- One 400g tin of plum tomatoes
- Two 400g tins of beans, such as cannellini, butter, or mixed
- 100g dried pasta
- Parmesan cheese, Grana Padano or a vegetarian alternative, to serve
- Extra virgin olive oil
Method
Peel and finely chop the garlic and onion. Place a large shallow casserole pan on a medium-high heat with one tablespoon of olive oil.
Add the garlic and the bay leaves, followed by the onions.
Dice the carrots and celery into rough one cm pieces, adding them to the pan as you go. Remove any tough stalks from your greens, chop them finely and add to the pan.
Allow it to cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring regularly, until they are softened and caramelised.
Next, crumble in the stock cube, pour in the tinned tomatoes, breaking them up with your spoon, then fill one of the empty tomato tins with water and add that too. Pour in the beans, along with their juice, then season with a pinch of sea salt and black pepper.
Shred your greens and sprinkle them into the pan, top up with 600ml of boiling kettle water, then add the pasta. Cover the pan and let it simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the pasta is just cooked and the soup has thickened to your liking.
Finally, season the soup to perfection, then serve it topped with a grating of parmesan cheese and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.