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An easy to make, Minestrone soup recipe that tastes 1000 times better than the Olive Garden’s version! My minestrone soup is loaded with good for you veggies, like spinach and zucchini. It’s also protein packed with red kidney beans and great northern beans. You’ll be full for hours from this healthy, nutritious soup!
How about I throw a bunch of ingredients (say, veggies, beans, and pasta) into a crockpot and call it dinner? This slower cooker minestrone soup is probably going to be the easiest thing you’re ever going to cook. And the best part? You didn’t even need to turn on the stove!
I wonder if it’s even legal for me to call this a minestrone soup recipe? It’s ingredients that get tossed into the slow cooker and a few hours later, they come out in the form of a soup. Don’t you just love lunches and dinners like that? This gal right here is a big fan of those kinda meals.
This minestrone soup was one of the very best I have ever tasted. The sun-dried tomato pesto absolutely made this soup truly “over the top”.
Minestrone Soup Recipe Video:
So guys, I have news. I ♥ vegetables. And you already knew that. And now you know it even more.
My hope for you with this soup → that you make this on a really chilly and busy October night. It’s absolutely perfect for those days/nights when you have only 3,018,857 things to get done, and the fact that the crockpot is adulting for you and taking on the dinner responsibilities for the evening means you have the 30 minutes you would’ve spent making dinner to do what. ever. you. like.
Real excitement right there. Ideally, that would happen in a big, comfy chair with a good book and a warm blanket. These oh so rare, picture-perfect moments are brought to you by my slow cooker minestrone soup recipe.
Why this is the best minestrone soup recipe:
Shall I dare say my minestrone soup recipe is better than the Olive Garden’s version? Yes, I think I will. Don’t get me wrong; I first fell in love with Minestrone soup at the Olive Garden. It actually set the expectation of what a minestrone should be for me. The canned stuff was absolutely no good at all. And after researching the interweb until there weren’t any more recipes left to research, I decided to develop my own recipe.
So what makes my recipe unique and so much better? Well, I’ve got a secret ingredient. Any guesses? Okay, I’ll give you a hint. It’s in the picture above. And it’s a red blob. No, not the diced tomatoes, the other red blob.
*Shhh* I’m only sharing this with you because we’re friends. Ready for it?
Homemade Sun-dried tomato pesto!
That super concentrated flavor of tomato pesto is exactly what minestrone soup needs. Plus, the basil, parmesan, and pine nuts in the pesto add such a great, full-bodied flavor to the soup.
Also, since we’re sharing secret ingredients and all, toss in a few parmesan rinds into the minestrone soup. For herbs, I used dried oregano, fresh rosemary (because I had fresh on hand, dried is fine too), and a few bay leaves.
Recipe Tip
I should mention that this does make quite a batch of soup. So if you’re planning on making this for weekly lunches, I suggest cooking and keeping the pasta separately. Then you can add some to each serving before reheating.
This slower cooker minestrone soup is exactly what you need to warm up on a chilly evening. I served it with a few slices of baguette, toasted and rubbed down with a garlic clove.
We dipped, we dunked, and sipped, slurped soup (say that 3x fast) like it was our job. Garlic bread pairs beautifully with minestrone soup! It was a good evening. 🙂
Homemade Minestrone Soup (Slow Cooker)
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 (14.5 ounce) cans diced tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1/4 cup sun-dried tomato pesto homemade or store-bought
- 1 parmesan rind
- 4 cups vegetable stock
- 2 cups water
- 1 cup carrots diced
- 1 1/4 cup celery diced
- 1 1/2 cup white onion diced
- 4 – 5 cloves garlic minced or pressed
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 sprig rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon dried
- 2 bay leaves
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 (15-ounce) can red kidney beans drained and rinsed
- 1 (15-ounce) great northern beans drained and rinsed
- 1 1/2 cups zucchini diced
- 1 1/2 cups ditalini pasta or other small shapes
- 1 cup frozen green beans thawed
- 2 1/2 cups baby spinach chopped
- Parmesan cheese grated
Instructions
- Add the diced tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato pesto, parmesan rind, vegetable stock, water, carrots, celery, onions, garlic, oregano, rosemary, and bay leaves to a slow cooker.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste and cook on low heat 6-8 hours or high 3-4 hours.
- Add in red kidney beans, great northern beans, zucchini, and pasta and cook on high heat for an additional 20- 25 minutes until pasta is tender.
- Stir in the spinach and green beans and cook for an additional 5 minutes until heated through.
- Serve warm topped with parmesan cheese and garlic toasts.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like This? Leave a comment & rating below!
My first Minestrone soup, loved this simple yet flavorful recipe. Prepared soup up to pasta last night before and cooked it Came home to a house that smelled like my mom’s! Only mistake I made was using to much pasta so the constancy was more like a veggie stew. I just added a bit more both, still relish. Thanks for a great recepie
Have you tried adding dried kidney beans at the start, it would be interesting to see how that would turn out.
Hi. You need to be careful to soak dried beans overnight because they will not cook enough.
Great recipe! I’m to much of a carnivore to not add a pound of ground beef to it! Came out delicious.
I love this version of minestrone! I wanted to let you know I featured this recipe on my January Pinterest Roundup post. Happy New Year! https://amysenter.com/january-pinterest-roundup/
I would like to try this soup for a soup cookoff we are having for a fundraiser. Can I make the day before and reheat. should I add the pasta later when I reheat it? I am going to see if I can find everything and make the sun-dried pesto sauce. Sounds wonderful. T
Thank you..
Yes, you can make the soup portion the day before, but I do advise that you keep the pasta separate if the soup isn’t being served the same day. I would prepare the pasta according to package directions and add it to the soup when you reheat. Hope you enjoy the soup! 🙂
Sorry for being dim but for the second step do you add that to the slow cooker and cook for 25 more minutes or do you do the second step on your stovetop?
Hey there! Everything gets done in the slow cooker for this recipe, so you’ll add the beans, zucchini, and pasta into the slow cooker and continue cooking it for 20-25 minute or until the pasta is tender 🙂
I made this recipe for my family and it is absolutely delicious! I knew when I saw the sun-dried pesto that it was perfect to boost the flavor of this soup! I didn’t find that pesto so I used jarred pesto and then cut up and kind of mashed part of a jar of sun-dried tomatoes into a paste. I followed the directions but put the last ingredients with an hour to spare rather than 25 minutes. I did put the pasta in to cook and as some other comments say, it was more stew-like the next day but we didn’t mind at all. You can add more broth if needed but we loved it thicker as well. When I make it and take it to a family member today, I will take the cooked pasta separately so they can add when they eat it. This is now my favorite minestrone and we will be enjoying it again this week for dinner! Thanks for sharing it!
Make noodles on the side. Add them to soup as needed. They get mushy. Especially if refrigerated and heated up later.
Loved this recipe! I did add cubed venison steak. I also u I couldn’t find sun-dried tomato pesto at the small country store in my town, so I used a jarred pesto and chopped sun-dried tomatoes in oil. I will be definitely be making this again!!
My friend recommended me this soup recipe, according to its taste, it is an amazing minestrone soup, so I prepared this soup a couple of days ago and it was a huge success for me. The smell of soup was amazing and the taste of the soup was divine. Thanks to this great recipe it helps me make restaurant-style minestrone soup.
This is beyond amazing soup! I have searched high and low for one that is as good as restaurant style and this is it! I do prefer the vegetables on the soft side so I complete step one as indicated and let it cook with all the ingredients added for a few hours longer than suggested ( minus the spinach). It makes a ton of soup and it’s a huge hit with everyone. It really is so yummy! Thank you for the great recipe.
Made this yesterday! It was absolutely divine. I changed a few ingredients (could not for the life of me find sun-dried tomatoes so we used regular pesto, same for Parmesan rind), and I added beef stew chunks. SO good!! It smelled amazing the whole time. I ended up having it on low for 7 hours, then high for 40 minutes (forgot to thaw my green beans, and my noodles took a bit longer to cook). Would definitely recommend for anyone looking for a heart soup!
If you have aldi near you, the one by me has it at a very reasonable price too! 1 small jar will get you 2 batches of soup.
I made this and it was amazing. I used beetps pesto instead of sun-dried tomato pesto because it was in my pantry. For everything else I stuck to the recipe. I loved how my house smelled while it was cooking! Yeah, I’ll be making this again.
Incredible recipe!!!
Looks amazing!! Can I switch in potatoes instead of pasta? Would I just cut them up small and throw them in at the beginning? Also, if I wanted to add meat – any suggestions? Think it would be ok to throw in a pound of ground chicken at the beginning? Or would chunks of breast be better? Thank you so much for the help!!
Love it will make it again next winter but could you also have rescipe for pepper pot soup please
BEST recipe ever!!! Amazing! My carrots remained hard and not fully cooked so next time I will cut them thinner or boil them for a little bit before they go into crock pot. SO flavorful, thank you so much for sharing!! 🙂
Kathleen 2/27/2019
Cut everything small.. cooked on high 4 hours and veg. are stilll hard. I don’tt know why.
I made this today, I cut the recipe exactly in half to fit it into my crockpot and oh my goodness it was PHENOMENAL!! Thank you very much, I have not been so impressed with a recipe in a long time. Perfect for a winter night. Looking forward to trying more recipe’s from your website.
This soup is easy to make and delicious. The first time I made it, I did it stove top because I don’t read the recipe properly. It was still wonderful. Just finished putting the ingredients in my Ninja Pot and can’t wait to taste the finished product
Thank you for sharing! I loved this once it was done, but when wanting to enjoy the soup the next day, there was no broth left and it became a mound of veggies and beans in a pot. I will make this again, but I will not add the pasta until I go to serve the soup. I plan to make the pasta separately as it soaks up all the water.
When that happens just add more fluids or make a shepherds pie. Works beautiful and a shepherds pie. All you would have to do is put biscuits or potatoes on top and put it in the oven until the potatoes are golden.