Minestrone with Quinoa

Traditional minestrone soup has vegetables in a tomato based soup with pasta and kidney beans. The recipe I found called for something like two cups of chopped plum tomatoes, and water, as the base. In the past, I have found that leaving the tomato peels in can make the dish a bit bitter. I like using diced or stewed tomatoes but the third ingredient on the can seems to always be high fructose corn syrup! I managed to find a can of organic diced tomatoes that only actually contains tomatoes - imagine that! I used that and water instead of trying to dice a ton of plum tomatoes in my variation below.


To a soup pot add some olive oil, minced garlic, chopped fresh thyme, chopped fennel, a little bit of crushed fennel seeds, diced red onion, chopped celery, a little bit of chopped leek and two bay leaves. Stir frequently over medium heat for about 8 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.

Add a can of organic diced tomatoes, juice and all, along with a can of your favorite beans, rinsed. I went with a can of tri-blend of black, pinto and kidney beans. Add about 2 cups of water to get actual soup consistency:

Next add about 1/3 cup quinoa and mix in well. I use quinoa as a rice substitute as it has pretty great texture and tons of fiber by comparison. I don't particularly like the pasta usually found in minestrone, so when I found a recipe that used quinoa instead I jumped on it. Quinoa doesn't look like much, but it does absorb as much water as rice would, so don't go over board!

Set the burner to high to get it all to boil and then reduce heat and let simmer for 15-20 minutes. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper, remove the bay leaves and the soup is ready to be served!