Minestrone and meatball soup
Cheerful and affordable soup perfect to share with friends and family
Serves
6 - 8
Prep Time
15 mins
Cook Time
1 hr
This is hearty food at its best. We've suggested making the meatballs from scratch, but this is a great way to extend leftovers as well. Use what vegetables you have on hand for a budget dinner.
This recipe is based on Sue Hamilton and Dana Alexander's original Everything's in it minestrone recipe.
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ShareIngredients
200g Quality Mark beef mince
1 onion
finely chopped2 garlic cloves
finely chopped2 carrots
roughly chopped2 celery stalks
finely sliced2 small courgettes
roughly chopped100g green beans
400g chopped tomatoes
2 Tbsp tomato paste
4 cups chicken stock
400g can cannellini beans
drained1/2 of a 400g can red kidney beans
Drained and rinsed1.5 cups small pasta shapes
1 tsp dried basil
2 large handfuls baby spinachi
1 handful basil leavesi
roughly chopped
Method
In a large saucepan, gently fry onion and garlic over a low heat until transparent.
Throw in carrots, celery, courgettes, green beans or any other veggies you have on hand. Make sure they are cut roughly to the same size so they cook evenly. Any denser vegetables should be diced smaller.
Cook vegetables over a medium heat until carrots start to soften and brown a little.
Add tomatoes, tomato paste and stock and bring to a gentle simmer.
Add cannellini beans, kidney beans and pasta and simmer gently for at least 20 minutes or until the pasta has softened.
While soup is simmering, make tiny meatballs. Mix beef mince with dried basil, a good pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper.
Form a meatball from a heaped teaspoon of the minced beef mixture. Repeat until all mince mixture is used. Make sure they are small, otherwise they’ll break apart in the soup.
Fry meatballs in a little olive oil until lightly browned all over.
When pasta is softened, add meatballs, spinach and basil and stir through.
Simmer for another 5 minutes then, if wished, serve with a swirl of pesto on top or a dusting of Parmesan, or both.
Nutrition Information per Serving (587g)
This nutritional analysis is based on 6 serves and doesn't include the pesto or parmesan.
