I love this soup!  It’s got all the wonderful flavor of minestrone, but has the addition of spinach which makes the healthy-person-wannabe in me very excited.  It doesn’t have noodles, but you don’t miss them because the beans are so hearty.  In truth, my kids look at it kinda funny when it’s hanging off their spoons like seaweed, but I make them deal with it.  I’ve taken this soup to work potlucks and always have people ask for the recipe afterwards.  I first made this in the winter when we lived in Pasadena, but I made it a ton in Salt Lake City where the winters needed warm soup more desperately than southern California winters did.  Now that I’m in Michigan we’ve had soup probably more often that we ever have and I fear we’ll still be craving something warm in April while everyone else we know is enjoying spring break in the sunshine.  It’s already 80 degrees in my hometown, but it was two below here in Ann Arbor this morning.  Looks like I’m probably going to be stuck posting winter recipes for a while…

I’ve made only a few slight changes to this from Giada’s original version, all of which are just my personal preferences.  First, I omit adding a parmesan cheese rind.  I don’t usually just have that on hand.  I’ve added parmesan cheese to the entire pot of soup before serving it, but that backfired too because the cheese melts and then gets stuck on the sides of the pan making it extra difficult to clean later.  I prefer to just top each bowl with cheese as a garnish at the end.  This soup is great to make for a crowd and it freezes well.  I always make a double batch of this, but keep the pancetta at only 4 ounces, which is partly because the pancetta is expensive, partly because it’s fatty, and we’ve never really missed it.  I also keep the spinach portion the same because of the seaweed factor for my kids as mentioned above. 🙂

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 4 ounces pancetta, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, 1 minced and 1 whole
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 2 cups fresh spinach chopped
• 1 (15-ounce) can cannellini beans, drained
• 1 tablespoon herbs de Provence
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1 bay leaf
• parmesan cheese, grated

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a heavy large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, pancetta, minced garlic, salt, and pepper. Cook until the onion is golden brown and the pancetta is crisp, about 7 minutes.
2. Add tomato paste and stir until dissolved. Add tomatoes and stir, scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to release all the brown bits. Add the spinach, beans, herbs, stock, & bay leaf. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
3. Serve topped with parmesan cheese

Recipe only slightly adapted from Giada de Laurentiis