Minestrone-style stew with meatballs

What is minestrone?

From the Italian minestra, meaning soup or serve, minestrone is at the very least a preparation of fresh seasonal vegetables cut up and cooked in a broth.

The dish I’m proposing today is a vegetarian pot au feu minestrone without pasta, with VEGGIE BOLLETTES.

Vegetarian minestrone used to be eaten by default, due to the high price of meat.

Consumed throughout Italy, there are many variations depending on the season and region, and it’s often accompanied by dried beans, pasta, rice and sometimes basil or Parmesan.

There’s no single recipe for minestrone, as its origins go back so far and are so deeply rooted in Italy’s rural and popular traditions.
La cucina povera

It’s the epitome of cucina povera, or poor man’s cooking, as opposed to cucina nobile, the noble, aristocratic cuisine. A nourishing, simple and inexpensive cuisine that allowed people to make the most of the leftovers from previous meals, to which were added seasonal vegetables from the garden or the market.

Minestrone soup is the classic par excellence, and not for nothing: it’s the perfect amalgam of flavours and allows us to consume lots of delicious, vitamin-packed vegetables!

Chi ben cena, ben dorme. Qui soupe bien, dort bien” is an Italian proverb, the opposite of the famous French “Qui dort dîne”. Let’s dine on a monument to Italian cuisine