Slow Cooker Minestrone Soup Recipe

Slow Cooker Minestrone Soup is hearty, vegetarian and hits you right in the money maker… that is your stomach weirdos. So basically cut up all the veggies, add some spices and cans of goodness and you are ready to go. The one thing to point out is that this makes an assload of soup. So if you are serving 10 people, you can go ahead and dump all the pasta into the slow cooker with 30 minutes to go. However, if you were wanting leftovers or want to freeze it, cook the pasta separately and add a little to each bowl as needed. If you don’t do it this way, the pasta will soak all the juices up in the fridge and it will be very mushy. That is not good Bob. So keep the apart like Redsox and Yankees fans or else it will not turn out good the next day. So enjoy this slow cookin’ bastard!

Ingredients:

- 1 cup carrots, sliced
- 1 cup celery, sliced
- 1 1/2 cups yellow onion, diced
- 28 oz can diced tomatoes, with juices
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste
- 2-3 Tbsp minced garlic
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 1/4 Tbsp dried Italian seasoning
- pinch of red pepper flakes
- 4 cups vegetable stock or broth
- 2 cups water
- 2 Tbsp vegetable base
- 15 oz can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 15 oz can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 1/2 cups dried ditalini or other small pasta
- Grated parmesan cheese

1 cup diced zucchini
1 cup frozen cut green beans

1 1/2 cups baby spinach, roughly chopped

Directions:

Add first ingredients (Carrots through Beans) to a large slow cooker.
Stir to combine, cover, and cook on LOW for 6-8 hours, or HIGH for 3-4 hours.
30 minutes before you want to serve the soup, add zucchini and green beans. Stir, cover and cook on HIGH for 20-25 minutes.
Cook pasta in separate pan
5 minutes before serving, add in baby spinach, stir, cover and cook on HIGH for 5 minutes.
When serving, if desired, grate parmesan cheese over the soup and enjoy! Maybe serve with crusty bread.

Like this Slow Cooker Minestrone Soup recipe? Check out some more soup recipes HERE.