Winter minestrone with pesto croûtes
By Mary Cadogan
Cooking time
Prep: 15 mins Cook: 40 minsSkill level
EasyServings
Serves 4Keep the winter out and warmth in with nutritious minestrone and pesto croûtes
Nutrition and extra info
Additional info
- Freezable
- Easily doubled / halved
Nutrition per serving
- kcalories
- 274
- protein
- 13g
- carbs
- 28g
- fat
- 13g
- saturates
- 3g
- fibre
- 8g
- sugar
- 12g
- salt
- 2.56g
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 100g unsmoked lardons or chopped streaky bacon
- 2 large carrots, chopped
- 2 sticks celery, chopped
- 1 medium potato, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped or crushed
- 400g can chopped tomatoes
- 1l vegetable stock (from granules or a cube)
- 2 tsp chopped sage leaves, or 1 tsp dried
- few cabbage leaves, shredded
- 400g can haricot beans
- handful chopped parsley
For the pesto croutes
- slices of crusty bread
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp pesto
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Method
- Heat the olive oil in a large pan, add the onion and lardons or bacon and fry for about 5 mins until the onion is starting to brown. Tip in the carrots, celery, potato and garlic, stir well and cook for a few minutes.
- Add the tomatoes, stock and sage, and bring to the boil, stirring. Reduce heat to simmer and cook partly covered for 30 mins, stirring in the cabbage after 15 mins. Drain and rinse the beans and add to the pan with the parsley. Season and serve with pesto croûtes, see right, or crusty bread.
- For the pesto croûtes: Cut 3-4 slices of crusty bread into chunks, about 2cm thick. Tip into an ovenproof pan. Mix the olive oil and pesto, then add to the bread, tossing it with your hands until the croûtes are evenly coated. Bake in a moderate oven for about 10 mins until crisp.
Recipe from Good Food magazine, February 2006
Comments, questions and tips
Comments
really nice and easy to make. i didnt use any bacon potato or beans. used cabbage, green beans and broken wholemeal spaghetti instead and everybody enjoyed it! also didnt use the croutons as trying to be good so just added a little pesto to the finished bowl. feel like you can use the base and pretty much add what you've got available. will definately be making this again trying out all the different ways suggested!
This is a real winner, but it's the pesto croutes that are the star! People may very soon get sick of me putting them on everything I cook. Left out the potato and put wholewheat spaghetti in instead, then reheated the next day and slung in some fried leeks and butterbeans. Just fab - you could go on tweaking this recipe forever.
I made a few changes to this soup but it turned out really well so I thought that i'd share them with everyone. Firstly I seasoned well and added a pinch of chilli flakes to give it a bit of a kick. I also roughly blended half of the mixture before adding the beans to thicken it up a bit and added some conchigliette pasta which made it wonderfully tasty and filling. I also left out the bacon because I wanted a veggie option. I would highly recommend!