With the falling temperatures, the desire for warm stews and soups increases. Do you feel the same way? I love soups all year round and I can actually eat minestrone at any time of the year. But kale chips are reserved for autumn and winter.
The combination is wonderful, a steaming plate of minestrone and crispy vegetable chips! So delicious. The soup is also a real immune booster – the vegetables contain a lot of vitamin C and A, the chickpeas and beans bring fiber and the pleasure to indulge it all together makes the minestrone pure soul food!
Ingredients classic minestrone:
- 500 g white cabbage
- 2-3 carrots
- 1 stick of leek
- 1 onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 cans of chunky tomatoes (400g each)
- 1 l vegetable broth
- 1 small sprig rosemary / old. 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
- 1 sprig thyme / old. 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- Salt
- freshly ground pepper
- 1 tin of chick peas (240 g drained weight) / or freshly cooked chick peas
- 1 tin of white beans (240 g drained weight) / or freshly cooked white beans
- 1/2 bunch fresh parsley
- 50 g parmesan or pecorino, freshly grated
Now this looks like a pretty long list of ingredients! But it’s not that bad and the soup is actually cooked in half an hour. Really!
Most of the ingredients come from stock. Even though I love freshly cooked chickpeas and beans very much, I always have a few cans of them in the cupboard. Sometimes I didn’t plan enough to soak the dried legumes, sometimes I spontaneously decide to spice up a dish with chickpeas.
The small energy packages are just so delicious!
On top the crispy kale chips
The minestrone tastes great without the kale chips. But with they make an excellent change. While the soup is simmering, the vegetable chips are ready in the oven in no time. It is worth to make a little more right away, they can be stored in a well closed tin 2-3 days. However, they have to be really crisp and dried to be stored, otherwise you will be disappointed.
If the kale chips are standing in a small bowl in our kitchen, they are empty at the end of the day! Our oldest one is guaranteed to reach into the chips every time he pass by – that’s good, because kale is also a real nutrient bomb.
The recipe for the kale chips can be found here on the blog…
Minestrone is vegan – except for the cheese
If you prefer the minestrone to be completely vegan, just leave the cheese out. I must confess, I love cheese at the moment still too much… and it rounds off the soup so nicely.
But it is no problem to simply leave out the Parmesan / Peccorino. Just as you like.
Minestrone, the Italian classic with kale chips
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 20
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4-6
- Category: Soup
Description
Minestrone is a classic in the Italian kitchen. Here is my favorite version – almost more stew than soup. Warming, energizing and delicious!
Ingredients
- 500 g white cabbage
- 2-3 carrots
- 1 stick of leek
- 1 onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 cans of chunky tomatoes (400g each)
- 1 l vegetable broth
- 1 small sprig rosemary, chopped / old. 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
- 1 sprig thyme, chopped / old. 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- Salt
- freshly ground pepper
- 1 tin of chick peas (240 g drained weight) / or freshly cooked chick peas
- 1 tin of white beans (240 g drained weight) / or freshly cooked white beans
- 1/2 bunch fresh parsley, chopped
- 50 g parmesan or pecorino, freshly grated
- 2 handfuls of kale chips
Instructions
- Clean the white cabbage, cut off the very hard outer leaves. Remove the stalk, wash and cut into 1 cm wide strips. Peel carrots, clean leeks and cut both diagonally into 0.5 cm wide pieces. Peel onion and garlic. Dice the onion, chop the garlic finely.
- Heat olive oil in a pot. Sauté the onions over medium heat until they are glassy. Add garlic and sauté briefly. Add cabbage and carrots, stir-fry for about 5 minutes. Add tomato paste and fry. Deglaze with some stock and let it roast again. If you have time, you can repeat this process a few times. If it has to be done quickly, continue immediately by adding the tomatoes and the rest of the broth at once. Add the herbs and the bay leaves, season with salt and pepper and simmer covered at low heat for 10 minutes.
- Rinse pulses under running water, drain. Add the leek to the soup and simmer everything else for another 10 minutes. At the end of the cooking time, season again with salt and pepper.
- Serve hot and sprinkle with freshly grated cheese and chopped parsley.
- Serve with the crispy kale chips
Notes
The recipe for the kale chips can be found here on the blog!
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