Vegetable Minestrone · Benedetta Rossi

Take out your biggest pot — one that will hold two litres of water plus a mountain of vegetables with room to spare. Chop the half onion, the 2 carrots and the 2 celery ribs straight into it.

💡 Notice what is NOT happening: there is no frying the soffritto in oil first. This minestrone is built entirely by boiling, which is why it tastes clean and light rather than rich.

Cut the large courgette and the 2 potatoes into small cubes, roughly 1.5 cm, and add them to the pot.

💡 Keep every piece about the same size. Everything is going into one pot for the same thirty minutes, so a big chunk of potato will still be hard when the courgette has already collapsed.

Tip in the 200 g of frozen beans and the 200 g of frozen peas, straight from the freezer.

💡 Do not thaw them and do not use tinned beans here. Frozen beans are raw and need the full half hour; tinned beans are already cooked and will disintegrate into mush.

Shred the 5 chard leaves — roll them up like a cigar and slice across into ribbons — and add them too.

Pour in the 2 litres of cold water. It should cover the vegetables completely; press them down with a spoon and top up with a splash more if any are poking out.

💡 Cold water, not hot. Starting cold gives the potatoes and beans time to soften evenly as the pot climbs to temperature.

Add 1 tablespoon of coarse salt and half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. Put the pot on a high flame, uncovered, and bring it up to a full boil — around 12–15 minutes.

💡 The bicarbonate is what keeps the greens vivid — it stops the cooking water turning acidic, which is what greys out chlorophyll. Half a teaspoon in two litres is the ceiling. Any more and the vegetables go soapy-tasting and slimy, so measure it, do not eyeball it.

The moment it reaches a rolling boil, start your 30-minute timer and turn the heat down to a steady, gentle simmer — small bubbles breaking the surface, not a violent churn.

💡 The 30 minutes is counted from the boil, not from when the pot went on the stove — this is the single most common way to undercook a minestrone.

After 15 minutes of simmering — half way — stir in the half glass of tomato pulp.

💡 Tomato goes in late on purpose. Its acidity slows down the softening of beans and potatoes, so adding it at the start would leave them chalky in the middle.

Add the 50 g of frozen mushroom mix and give the pot a good stir from the bottom up.

💡 Fifty grams sounds like nothing next to two litres, but dried porcini in the mix are what give this soup its savoury depth in place of stock. Do not skip them.

Keep it simmering for the remaining 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes so nothing catches on the base.

Test a potato cube against the side of the pot with your spoon: it should crush with almost no pressure. If it resists, give it another 5 minutes.

Turn off the heat. Taste a spoonful of the broth and correct it with fine salt — a pinch at a time, tasting after each.

💡 Taste the LIQUID, not a vegetable. The broth is what carries the seasoning, and it has been reducing for half an hour — it may need far less salt than you expect.

Ladle into bowls while it is still steaming and finish each one with a thread of extra virgin olive oil poured over the surface.

💡 The oil goes on OFF the heat, in the bowl. Boiled olive oil loses its peppery aroma completely; drizzled raw over hot soup it blooms the moment it hits the surface.