Vegan Roasted Minestrone. There are a million ways to make minestrone, choose one. Minestrone is cool cause you can add whatever and it’s fine. This recipe makes a little less than a cauldron of minestrone so you can have leftovers for the week.

As always, if you dig this recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and we can talk soup.

Vegan Roasted Minestrone. Clean out your fridge.

VEGAN ROASTED MINESTRONE

prep time: 15 minutes
cook time: 45 minutes

Not pictured: bread.

This one requires you to dice up a bunch of stuff, cook it all and submerge it all in roasted vegetable stock.

Now quick disclaimer: I made the stock for this recipe ahead of time and will stick that recipe at the end of this recipe as a subrecipe, meta recipe inception. For the stock, you can prepare a whole bunch and freeze it to use as needed. You can use store-bought broth of course but just so you know where the word roasted is coming from.

Skipping the stock preparation, first you will dice up every vegetable in your possession. The fun thing about minestrone is there isn’t really a uniform way to make it. So whatever veggies you have on hand should work totally fine. Here is how I made mine.

What you’ll need:

garlic
shallot
squash
zucchini
carrots
celery
leek
olive oil
salt
pepper

Rinse off your vegetables. Those pesky onions got recalled. Dice them up.

Get out a big ol’ stock pot and throw some olive oil in there. Bring it up to medium heat. Add your garlic and shallot to start.

Let those ride for a few and then add your carrot, celery, zucchini & squash. Or whatever you ended up using. Add a generous pinch of salt and a big crack of black pepper. Add another glug of olive oil if needed. You’ll probably need it.

Stir that up nice and cook it all down until softened.

And there you have it, raw vegan minestrone. Enjoy.

Toss your leeks in there next. Let everything cook. Add another super-pinch of salt to pull the moisture out of your vegetable medley. Next, you’re going to add some more stuff.

What you’ll need:

fire roasted tomatoes (two 14oz cans…I couldn’t find a 28oz can)
tomato paste
potatoes
dried Italian herbs
salt
pepper
red pepper flakes
fresh oregano
bay leaves
vegetable stock (64oz)
kale
some kind of small shelled pasta
cannellini beans
lemon (or apple cider vinegar)
vegan cheese (optional)

Squeeze some tomato paste into your mixture.

Stir that up so it no longer looks like cat poop and add more if you have more. I ran out. Add salt, pepper and red pepper flakes into the mash. Open up two cans of fire roasted tomatoes and toss them in there next. Then add a whole bunch of dried herbs and a few bay leaves for measure.

Add 64oz of veggie stock and 8oz of water. IE: Fill the tomato can halfway with water.

My stock was frozen so now it has to unfreeze.

Give that a stir and let those flavors get to know each other as Babish would say. Bring your pot up to a boil and then cover and drop down to a simmer. While this cooks for a few, you can prepare the other stuff that didn’t get added yet.

Rinse your oregano and potatoes and kale if you have not already. Dice up the kale into big chunks, removing the stems as you see fit. Dice up the potatoes into small chunks. You can remove the skin if you’d like but I kept them on. Remove the oregano leaves from the oregano stems.

Drain your can of cannellini beans and taste one to make sure you bought the right beans.

Pop the lid off your stockpot and add the potatoes, kale and oregano. Save some of the oregano for garnish later.

Toss some salt in there too, why not. Add a box of whatever small pasta you have. Don’t add the beans just yet.

Stir that up so everything is spread evenly throughout the liquid. It may take some forearm strength. Bring the flame up to medium high to cook the pasta and potatoes. Give it about eight minutes or so, stirring periodically. If you overcook now, you’ll have mushy potatoes and soggy pasta so keep an eye on it.

Add salt and pepper and check to see your potatoes are fork-tender but not all mushy and weird. See that the pasta is cooked but still kinda firm and kill the flame completely. Add your beans into the mix and gently give it all a stir. Cut up that lemon I mentioned earlier and squeeze it into the soup and gently stir once more.

Grab your finest ladle and scoop some of that hard work into a bowl. Crack some black pepper directly into the bowl and add some chopped up, fresh oregano. Grate some vegan cheese up top if you have some. I forgot to buy some.

As stated previously, this recipe yields a lot of soup because why make a small batch of soup.

If you dug this recipe, cook it and tag me on instagram at @draggedthroughthegarden. Share it with all of your soup-loving friends. Share it with people who hate soup too because they are not to be trusted.

AND FOR THE STOCK!

As also stated previously, here’s the recipe I came up with for my roasted veggie stock.

What you’ll need:

corn on the cob
carrots
bell peppers
various root vegetables
onions
garlic
sweet potato
olive oil
salt
pepper
dried thyme

Clean all your vegetables that require cleaning. Chop them up into chunks and lay them across a sheet pan. Dice the top part off of the garlic bulb and throw that whole thing in there too. Glug a good amount of good olive oil atop all your veggies and make sure everything is coated. Add salt and pepper. Bring your oven up to 350° and throw your sheet pan in there.

Let it cook for a half hour. Pull it out and move stuff around. If nothing is burnt to a crisp, you’re in good hands. Bring the oven temperature up to 385° and stick it back in the oven for another 20 minutes. Pop it out once more. Add dried thyme. Rearrange everything again and pull anything out that cooked way faster than everything else. Pop it back in for another ten minutes.

Pull out the sheet pan and let cool.

Get out a stock pot and add all of your roasted vegetables. Add salt and pepper. Fill the pot with water and bring it up to a high flame. While your water is warming up, rinse off your fresh parsley. Add your dried mushrooms, fresh parsley, a few bay leaves into the pot too. Grab a dollop of vegemite and add that too. Vegemite is delicious, don’t even start with me.

Once your water is boiling, cover and immediately drop to a simmer. Let this simmer for as many hours as you have available. You can knock out some dishes in the meantime.

After xyz amount of hours go by (I let this one go for 5 hours), strain your liquid and discard all of the spent vegetables, herbs, mushrooms and whatever else is floating in there. Strain the liquid once more. And then strain it a third time through a finer strainer/mesh strainer if you have one. Stick your stock in a bunch of freezer safe containers, label them and stick them in the freezer after they come down to room temp.

As used in this recipe, I pulled two 32oz delis of stock and defrosted them in my sink. As you saw up there, they weren’t quite defrosted, hence the frozen cylinders of stock floating in my stockpot. Perfectly fine.

Once again, if you enjoyed any part of this, share it with some friends. Tag me on instagram at @draggedthroughthegarden. Share my page with anyone toying with the idea of consuming less meat or dairy. Cook the recipe and tweak it however you deem fit. I’m only your spotter, you’re the one putting up the weight here. Thank you.