Recipe: East Minestrone Soup

Minestrone is the ultimate clean out the fridge meal. Made with vegetables, pasta and broth, you can throw just about anything you want in the pot — a spare carrot here, a random mushroom there — and you will likely end up with a decent meal. Add in a drizzle of olive oil and perhaps a dollop of some kind of topping, and you can certainly cover up any less than perfect veggies.

While there’s nothing wrong with this freestyle approach, a little more thought will yield a far more delicious soup — with no extra effort. It is, as it so often can be, a matter of smart shopping.

If you’re starting with fresh vegetables (as opposed to ones languishing in the crisper of the fridge), make sure to choose vegetables that not only cook quickly but also add color and vibrancy to the final dish. I like zucchini or summer squash. Use one of each if you’d like. Give them a jump-start by sauteing them in olive oil before you add them to the stockpot.

Once they start to soften, pour in a box of vegetable broth (choose whichever brand you can find with the least number of ingredients for best results) and a can of diced tomatoes, preferably those that are fire-roasted. A can of fire-roasted tomatoes with garlic would be even better; it will boost the flavor of the final dish tremendously. Let the squash simmer away in the tomato-stock mixture until tender. It shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes.

For the pasta addition, I like to use fresh or frozen tortellini. Four-cheese tortellini is a great filling to use in this recipe. You’ll get the heft from the pasta itself, along with big umami flavor without having to add any additional cheese to garnish the soup. Plus, even the frozen variety only takes a matter of minutes to cook through, which means this soup is ready to eat in about 20 minutes.

Top it all off with a big scoop of prepared pesto. Not only does the pesto add a pretty garnish, but it also mixes and mingles with the broth for a far more full-flavored soup than you’d think you could pull off in this time frame. A drizzle of olive oil is all it needs for a finishing touch. Well, olive oil and a big piece of crusty bread for sopping up that delicious broth.