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Soup · Lunch · Dinner · Beans · Fennel · Mushrooms · Vegetarian

Charred Vegetable Minestrone with Fennel

Charring the vegetables under the broiler first gives the soup its depth, so it barely needs to simmer and the vegetables keep their color and bite. The little pasta rings go in the bowl, not the pot.

Prep
20 min
Cook
25 min
Total
45 min
Serves
6
1×
Equipment
sheet pan · Dutch oven · pot for the pasta
Oven
Broil
Minestrone in a blue-green ceramic mug, with kidney and cannellini beans, charred tomato and carrot, chopped parsley, and shaved Parmesan on top

Instructions

Char the vegetables

  1. Prep. Halve then quarter the carrots, halve the onions, and halve and quarter the celery. Put them on a sheet pan with the tomatoes, garlic cloves, fennel, and mushrooms, and drizzle with olive oil.

Raw vegetables on a foil-lined sheet pan: oyster mushrooms, orange and yellow carrots, celery, half a fennel bulb, halved white onions, garlic cloves, and small tomatoes

  1. Broil. Put the pan under the broiler for 5–8 minutes, until the vegetables develop a nice char. Rotate the pan or move the vegetables around so the char is even. Once they’re nicely charred, take them out.

The same vegetables after broiling, with deep black char on the onions, fennel, and carrots

Build the soup

  1. Sauté. Chop up the charred onions, carrots, celery, fennel, and mushrooms and add them to a Dutch oven on the stove with some olive oil. Sauté for 2 minutes.
  2. Garlic. Add the charred garlic along with one additional large fresh clove and keep sautéing, another 4–5 minutes, until the vegetables are nicely softened but not mush.
  3. Beans and tomatoes. Add the chopped green beans, kidney beans, cannellini beans, diced tomatoes, and the charred tomatoes, chopped. Sauté for 2 more minutes.
  4. Season. Add the thyme, oregano, a healthy pinch of salt and pepper, and a small pinch of red pepper flakes.

Close-up of the pot before the stock goes in: kidney and cannellini beans, green beans, charred carrot, onion, celery, and tomato

  1. Simmer. Add vegetable stock to cover all the vegetables and bring to a simmer. A minute or two is plenty; you want the vegetables to keep their color and structure.

Serve

  1. Noodles. While the soup cooks, cook the pasta separately. Little rings integrate well into the finished soup.

Cooked anelli, small pasta rings, piled up close

  1. Bowl up. Put some noodles in the bottom of each bowl, ladle the soup over, and top with chopped parsley and shaved Parmesan.

Close-up of a ladle of minestrone with pasta rings, kidney and cannellini beans, yellow carrot, fennel, and parsley