Minestrone Pasta Pesto Soup
A wonderful taste of Italy, delicious with gooey cheese melted on the top. While there's no set of ingredients for this soup (more what you've got to hand or in the cupboard), we found this combination delicious and it's 4 of our 5-a-day in one go. It can be tweaked to be vegetarian or vegan by taking out the prosciutto and switching the stock cubes for vegetable, mushroom or garlic and herb ones and swapping the pesto and cheese for vegan versions.
Equipment
- Hand blender (optional)
Ingredients
- 6 spray Spray oil
- 1 whole Leek Trimmed and finely chopped
- 1 whole Carrot Chopped
- 6 slices Prosciutto Finely chopped/ripped
- 3 cloves Garlic Chopped finely (or 15g straight from freezer)
- 170 g Broccoli stem Chopped thin like matchsticks
- 1500 ml Water
- 1 whole Ham stock cube
- 1 whole Chicken stock cube
- 1 tin Chopped tomatoes
- 1 tin Butter beans
- 75 g Soup pasta Or spaghetti broken into 5cm pieces
- 2 whole Courgettes Chopped
- 60 g Peas Frozen
- 15 g Fresh basil leaves Chopped finely
- 2 tbsp Reduced fat green pesto
- 2 tbsp Cheese Grated
Optional Serving Suggestions
- 4 slice French baguette 2cm thick
- 200 g Cheese Grated
Instructions
- Mist a large pan with spray oil on a medium heat. Add the leek, carrot and prosciutto and fry for 5 minutes until the leek has softened, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and stir it in.
- Dissolve the 2 stock cubes in 1l of the water (boiling hot) and add the stock to the pan, along with the broccoli stem and tinned tomatoes. Bring to the boil, and simmer uncovered for aout 12 minutes until the vegetables are tender.
- Meanwhile, drain the butter beans and add them to the remaining 500ml water, then blend them with a hand blender. If you're using smaller sized beans like kidney or black-eye beans then no need to blend.
- Add the soup pasta, beany water and courgettes to the big pan, and cook stirring occasionally for about 8 minutes until the pasta is cooked. Stir through the frozen peas and basil and season to taste.
- Ladle into bowls. Add ½tbsp pesto to the bowls for the people who like it and mix it in. Serve with optional cheese on toast (or "isle flottante") on top for kids, or extra grated cheese for a keto hit.
Notes
This is a great recipe as it can be amended for whatever you've got to hand, and the base of tomatoes, garlic and basil with pasta is delicious. We first tried this during lockdown using the broccoli stem due to lack of cabbage, and butter beans as those are our favourite in soup and it went down surprisingly well.
We wanted to work out how many portions of our 5-a-day of fruit and vegetables this soup was: we think it's about 4 of our 5-a-day based on a portion based on the NHS advice that "80g of fresh, canned or frozen fruit and vegetables counts as 1 portion of your 5 A Day".
Here's the working, please comment if you have a better way to work it out:
| Leek | 250 | g |
| Carrot | 65 | g |
| Garlic | 15 | g |
| Broccoli | 170 | g |
| Tomatoes | 400 | g |
| Butter beans (drained weight) | 235 | g |
| Courgettes | 400 | g |
| Peas | 60 | g |
| Basil | 15 | g |
| Total weight of vegetables + beans | 1610 | g |
| Number of servings | 5 | Servings |
| Veg weight per serving | 322 | g |
| 5-a-day per serving (80g = 1 portion of 5-a-day) | 4.0 | of 5-a-day per serving |