Hearty Meatball Minestrone Soup

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Remove fron the pan and set aside.
4. In a large pan, heat up the oil and add the onion chopped finely and fry until golden.
5. Add the carrots and garlic (also chopped finely) and stir for 1-2 minutes.
6. The plum tomatoes can be added too, you can chop them up a bit if you don’t want big chunks.
7. Stir for a further 2 minutes, then add the vegetable stock, chopped potato, beans, pasta and bay leaves.
8. Leave to cook on a medium heat until all vegetable are soft and the pasta is cooked through.
9. Add the meatballs, spinach and herbs, lemon juice and season with salt and pepper to taste.
10. Leave to cook for 2 more minutes, then turn off the heat.
11. Garnish with freshly chopped parsley.

Enjoy! ^_^

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