Hearty Meatball Minestrone Soup

CookingAddic Meatball minestrone soup with cannellini beans, wholemeal pasta,carrots, plum tomatoes and spinach, a hearty soup to warm you up on those chilli days. This is what l call comfort food with minimum effort and basic ingredients.

This classic Italian soup is hearty, full of goodness and so soothing. And a great way of clearing up the fridge, anything goes in, so not to worry if you don’t have a certain ingredient, it will still be delicious, that’s for sure. A very colourful soup, isn’t it?

Talking about comfort food, don’t you just love a bowl of hot soup on such a cold weather? I definitely do.

Ingredients

For the meatballs:

• 250 g minced beef
• 1/4 onion, finelly chopped
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp milk
• 1/2 tsp Italian herbs
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil

For the soup:

• 500 ml vegetable stock
• 1 can plum tomatoes (400 g)
• 1 can cannellini beans (400 g)
• 1 large onion
• 5 garlic cloves
• 1 large potato
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1/2 cup wholemeal pasta
• 1 carrot
• 1 cup baby spinach
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp Italian herbs
• salt and pepper to taste
• juice from 1/4 lemon
• parsley to garnish

Instructions

• To make the meatballs, mix all the ingredients together (except the oil) and shape into small(ish) balls. Depending on the size, you should get about 10-15 meatballs.
• Heat up the oil in a frying pan and add the meatballs, in batches if needed. Fry on both sides until cooked through, it should take 6-7 minutes on a medium heat.
• Remove fron the pan and set aside.
• In a large pan, heat up the oil and add the onion chopped finely and fry until golden.
• Add the carrots and garlic (also chopped finely) and stir for 1-2 minutes.
• The plum tomatoes can be added too, you can chop them up a bit if you don’t want big chunks.
• Stir for a further 2 minutes, then add the vegetable stock, chopped potato, beans, pasta and bay leaves.
• Leave to cook on a medium heat until all vegetable are soft and the pasta is cooked through.
• Add the meatballs, spinach and herbs, lemon juice and season with salt and pepper to taste.
• Leave to cook for 2 more minutes, then turn off the heat.
• Garnish with freshly chopped parsley.

Enjoy! ^_^