Peas – you’d normally use frozen peas so you can use them all year round but you can totally use fresh peas during spring/summer time. Reserve pasta water: Before draining the cooked pasta, save a cup of the pasta water. This starchy water can be used to adjust the consistency of your sauce, help it cling to the pasta, or add moisture to the dish. Ditaloni pasta makes an excellent alternative to ditalini. It is the same tubular shape, only a little larger and longer. Use this if you’re making a dish with pasta sauce. The larger diameter of the tube will carry more sauce. There is no doubt that we are a HUGE soup loving family. I grew up eating soups and borscht as a kid. It was a staple in our household. Now I make soup for my own kids pretty much year round.

Cook bacon and add sauce ingredients: Cook bacon until browned and crisp. Add the peas, cream, and Parmesan and cook together. Yes! In fact, minestrone tastes best when it’s rested. Just remember to add pasta/grains as the last step before serving. Can I freeze Minestrone? For this reason there’s no a set recipe for Italian minestrone soup but rather some basic concepts of choosing and cooking veggies, legumes and pasta. Pasta shapes:Try using another small or short pasta like orzo, ziti, orecchiette, rigatone, rotini pasta, or penne pasta. Long pasta will work, too!Pasta: any cut of pasta will work with this recipe, but ditalini is a favorite here. Peas: peas add a fun pop of color and nutritional value, but you can swap them for another veggie or some fresh chopped spinach.

In a large pot add a generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, roughly chopped onion, carrots, celery, garlic clove, and pancetta cubes. If you’re not planning to consume all the soup in one go, cook pasta in a separate pot instead of cooking it directly in the soup pot. Depending on the season, your local farm’s market availability and your personal taste preferences your vegetable selection will be different almost each time you make minestrone. Avocado Caesar Salad with Cucumbers– this salad is so crisp and fresh. Feel free to add more veggies to it. The beauty of this soup is that you can make it a hundred times and have it taste different every time you make it.Beans – Borlotti beans or cranberry beans are most common to be used in minestrone. But they can be easily substituted with kidney beans, navy beans, more delicate canellini beans or fava beans. Use canned beans or dried re-hydrated beans. Broccoli or Cauliflower – available during cold season. I suggest to use cruciferous veggies in moderation due to their strong taste. Just a couple of florets will do for a pot for 4 servings. Use anellini in pasta salads, soup, or to make a classic baked Timballo. They can also be used in pies topped with a mouth-watering golden crust. 7. Macaroni Are you making pasta e fagioli, the classic pasta and bean soup? Try tubettini, a pasta that is very similar in shape, only a little longer. Make it vegetarian:You can easily make this recipe suitable for a vegetarian diet by omitting the bacon. To achieve a similar smoky flavor and texture, you can use thinly sliced mushrooms with a bit of liquid smoke.

We added risoni high up on this list as it is a readily available ingredient found in any grocery store. Pasta:you can use ditalini pasta as I have done, but any kind of pasta will work well. Use high quality pasta where you can, or whole grain for extra fibre.

Ditalini Pasta Soup with White Beans

Pasta is the last thing you add to minestrone soup. Also, if you’re not going to consume all the soup in one go, I highly recommend cooking some pasta in a separate pot and adding it just to the part you’re going to consume immediately. Otherwise pasta will make minestrone way too mushy. This delicious Ditalini Pasta with Bacon and Peas recipe is made with simple ingredients in just 30 minutes. Are you cooking for younger children? Why not sub out the ditalini for every kid’s favorite, alphabet pasta. It’s made for soup and you can be more confident it’ll get eaten. What child can resist eating letters! Minestrone is ready to serve when pasta (rice) is cooked. I takes about 5-6 minutes for ditalini pasta and about 15 minutes for rice. Can I prepare Italian Minestrone Soup in advance? Cream:use full-fat heavy cream for the creamiest flavor. Milk and low fat cream do not reduce as well as heavy cream, so I don’t recommend them in this recipe.

Ditalini is a type of tiny, tube-shaped pasta that is ideal for pasta salad or pasta and bean soup. Its Italian name can be translated to mean “little thimbles” and it is also referred to as salad macaroni. Unlike many larger pasta types, ditalini can be cooked in under 10 minutes. Where can I buy ditalini pasta? Once all the hard veggies and water or broth are in the pot, add a piece of Parmesan cheese rind. Yes, just the rind. It’s a game changer. And most well kept secret (just kidding). Seriously though, it burst the flavor of veggies and broth 10x. The only difference, which is influenced a lot by a personal preference, is that when making Minestrone Soup I like a slightly chunkier cut as opposed to fine dice soffritto cut in all other recipes. Hard VegetablesSimmer the veggies with Parmesan rind and finish cooking Minestrone as normally. Take out the rind before serving. The Parmesan cheese adds incredible flavor to our sauce, and is the perfect complement to the smoky, salty bacon and sweet peas. Increase the sauce:The quantities used in this recipe will give you a creamy sauce that just lightly coats the pasta and other ingredients. If you like creamier pasta sauces, just add more cream. The world of Italian pasta can be very confusing, not only because there are so many pasta shapes but also because for most pasta shapes there isn’t really an official standard for pasta makers to follow. What there is are commonly accepted measurements and shapes for particular pastas with a bit of overlapping, name borrowing and a ‘va bene cosi’ (it’s okay like that!) attitude when it comes to homemade pasta!