Paleo Minestrone Soup Recipe

If you’ve ever had a classic minestrone soup, you probably noticed the addition of noodles, orzo, or rice to the base vegetable soup. Minestrone is one of those recipes that traditionally doesn’t have an exact set of ingredients, as it’s usually made with whatever vegetables and ingredients are readily on hand. But the base is always a broth, vegetables, beans, and some sort of starch.

Whole30 Minestrone Soup

Given that paleo food is made without legumes and grains, this cuts out about half of minestrone ingredients. Fortunately, the flavor of this minestrone soup (which can be prepared in either a slowcooker or a pressure cooker) makes up for the fact that there are no beans or noodles. This is a hearty, flavorful, paleo vegetable minestrone soup (though we like to add meat)… and the leftovers can feed your family for days.

A Paleo Vegetable Soup Recipe

We have enjoyed this soup both with and without the addition of the pork sausage, so it is both Whole30 and vegan friendly. This minestrone soup tastes even better than the endless soup from a certain chain restaurant, and you can make your own endless salad to go along with it.

Traditional Cooking Methods

With classic minestrone, there’s no fixed (or official) recipe. This means that Minestrone will vary widely across the world depending on traditional cooking methods, ingredients, and season (what veggies are in season). Minestrone sometimes ranges from a thick and dense consistency with boiled-down vegetables, to a more broth heavy soup with large quantities of diced and lightly cooked vegetables. Our version is meant to be a delicious mix of broth and diced veggies with meat.

A Substantial Soup

In modern Italian there are three words corresponding to the English word ‘soup’: zuppa, which is used in the sense of tomato soup, or fish soup; minestra, which is used in the sense of a more substantial soup such as a vegetable soup, and also for ‘dry’ soups, namely pasta dishes; and minestrone, which means a very substantial or large soup or stew, though the meaning has now come to be associated with this particular dish.