Main Ingredients:
1 medium to large onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 carrots
2 ribs of celery
2 to 3 medium potatoes (when chopped it should be equivalent to around 2 cups)
1 large can of diced tomatoes
¼ cup tomato paste
1 can of cannellini beans
2 cups of spinach
1 cup of small shell pasta
4 cups vegetable broth
2 cups of water
4 tablespoons of olive oil
For flavor:
Dried oregano
Dried thyme
Bay Leaves
Salt
Pepper
Red pepper flakes
Half a lemon
Parmesan cheese (grated)
Directions:
Peel and chop your onion, carrots, potatoes, garlic, and celery. For the potatoes and carrots, chop them up to bite size pieces to ensure it all cooks at the same time.
In a stock pot or dutch oven take some oil and place it over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add in your onion, carrots, and celery. Stir it for a couple of minutes and then add in the tomato paste. Stir every few minutes until the vegetables have softened.
Add in the chopped potatoes, garlic, and herbs. Stir for another few minutes, then add the diced tomatoes, broth, and water. At this stage you can add a pinch of salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes if you would like.
Bring the soup to a boil and partially cover with a lid.
Once it starts to boil, lower the heat and let it simmer for around 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, you may add the beans, pasta, and spinach. Stir well and let it simmer for another 15-20 minutes, or until the pasta is al dente.
Once it’s cooked, remove the bay leaves and add a dash of olive oil and lemon juice to taste.
Add some grated parmesan on top before serving.
Notes:
When it comes to ingredients almost everything is replaceable. You may switch out any of the vegetables for what is in season. For example, you may use squash, zucchini, peas, and green beans. Just make sure that you chop it all up to roughly the same size to keep the cook time more or less the same.
If you can’t use spinach then you may also substitute this with kale or any other collard greens you would like. Just make sure to chop it up before adding it into the soup.
The beans can also be substituted with other kinds of beans such as kidney beans, white beans, black beans, pinto beans, or even chickpeas.
For the broth, if you would like a meaty taste to the soup you may opt to use chicken stock or beef stock instead of vegetable stock.
When it comes to the choice of pasta to use there aren’t any rules, you can use what you have as long as it’s small such as elbow, small shell, orecchiette, ditalini, or fusilli. The key is to try and pick a shape that would hold some of the soup.
During cooking, if you feel that the soup is a little low on liquid, just add water and broth gradually to keep the consistency that you would like. Make sure to taste test along the way and add any herbs, spices, salt and pepper whenever it is needed.
