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Julia Child once said, “Cooking well doesn’t mean cooking fancy.” With that mantra in mind, for the next few weeks we’ll be featuring recipes for the ultimate delicious and low-key food: soup. First up, a satisfying minestrone with sweet potato, pesto and chickpeas from Heather Poire of the food blog Sunday Morning Banana Pancakes. Here’s how to whip it up in just half an hour…
Sweet Potato Minestrone
By Heather Poire of Sunday Morning Banana Pancakes
This recipe is for those with an impossible schedule or those of us who find we have only 30 minutes left at the end of the day to get dinner on the table. You can have an impressive homemade soup on the table in no time. It takes kindly to substitutions, like white beans instead of chickpeas, hearty baby greens such as kale or Swiss chard in place of spinach and orzo instead star pasta.
You will need:
Drizzle of olive oil
2 tbsp pesto
1 small onion, diced
1 large carrot
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed
2 cups canned tomatoes
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
4-6 cups water
Salt to taste
1/3 cup stelline (star) pasta
1 15 oz can chickpeas
Handful of green beans, trimmed and cut into bite size pieces
2 cups baby spinach
Parmesan cheese
Heat a medium soup pot over medium-high heat. Add olive oil, pesto, onion and carrot. Sauté until onion begins to soften and turn golden.
Add sweet potato, tomatoes, nutritional yeast, water and salt. Stir, then bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
Add pasta, chickpeas and green beans. Simmer for an additional 7-8 minutes.
Stir in baby spinach and cover. Serve once spinach has wilted.
Ladle into bowls and top with Parmesan and serve with toasted bread.
Keeps well up to 4 days (but it’s the best after day 2).
Thank you so much, Heather!
P.S. More delicious recipes, including chicken soup with wild rice and tomato soup
with parmesan croutons.
(Recipe and photos by Heather Poire. Thanks to Stella Blackmon for helping with this series.)
