Vegan Minestrone Soup Recipe

This easy Vegan Minestrone Soup recipe is packed full of fresh veggies, cooked pasta, and savory vegetable broth. You don’t have to wait for soup season to make this healthy one-pot meal. You can use an electric pressure cooker to make Instant Pot Minestrone Soup, or make this easy soup right on the stove top.

I love making healthy minestrone soup for my whole family and, the best part is, they love eating it! It’s also a great soup for meal prep – store in an airtight container and the flavors meld together so that the next day, the leftover soup tastes even better!

Where’s the recipe?

Here at My Crazy Good Life we write our recipes so that anyone can follow along and make them. If you’re a new cook, you’ll want to read through the post below before you jump to the printable recipe.

You’ll find ingredient information, detailed cooking instructions, recipe tips, and even calculations for several different healthy eating plans.

If you feel more comfortable in the kitchen, you can skip past all of that and scroll down to the printable recipe for this easy Minestrone Soup recipe.

Ingredients in Vegan Minestrone Soup

• Red onion: I prefer red, but any color that you have in your fridge will work.
• Celery: Celery adds a great crunch to any soup.
• Carrots: Carrots add a nice pop of color, subtle flavor, and crunch to this vegetarian soup. They’re also a great source of vitamin A.
• Zucchini: Zucchini is rich in antioxidants and will help to fill you up.
• Spinach: Fresh spinach is best for this hearty vegetable soup, but if you prefer it can be skipped.
• Whole wheat pasta: I use elbow pasta for this recipe.
• Red and white kidney beans: Hearty beans are a great source of protein and fiber. I used low sodium canned dark red kidney beans and cannellini beans.
• Diced tomatoes: I prefer low sodium.
• Vegetable stock: Using low sodium vegetable broth or stock is a great way to add flavor without a ton of sodium.
• Dried spices: Oregano, Basil, Sage, and Parsley
• Garlic: Fresh minced garlic is ideal for this classic minestrone recipe.
• Bay leaves: Remove the bay leaf before eating!

How to make this Instant Pot Vegan Minestrone Soup

1. Dice onions, celery, carrots, and zucchini. You can chop up your spinach too, if you’d like.
2. Turn your pressure cooker to sauté, spray the bottom of the pot, and add all vegetables except spinach.
3. After a few minutes of sautéing, add all of your spices except bay leaves to the pot. Stir to coat the vegetables with the seasoning, taking care not to cook your veggies for too long (they’ll finish cooking in a bit).
4. After your spices and veggies begin to smell amazing, turn the pot off and add dry whole grain pasta, drained red and white beans, diced tomatoes, and vegetable broth. Add bay leaves. Note: you’re going to remove the bay leaves after the soup has cooked and before you eat it.
5. Close the lid and set valve to the sealing position. Set your pressure cooker for 4 minutes on high pressure and hit start, if needed.
6. After the timer goes off and your soup is cooked, carefully open the sealing vent and allow the pressure to release. This is called a quick release.
7. Open the lid and add the spinach. Stir the soup and close the lid again for 2-3 minutes. Don’t turn the pot back on, the spinach just needs to sit in the hot soup for a bit.
8. Open the lid and stir your soup. Find the bay leaves and pull them out. Add salt and black pepper if you’d like. Enjoy!

How to make Vegan Minestrone Soup on the stove

1. Dice up onions, celery, carrots, and zucchini. You can chop your spinach if you’d like.
2. Turn your stovetop to medium-high heat and spray the bottom of a large soup pot (or add and heat olive oil) that you’re going to cook soup in. It should be big enough to hold vegetables plus 64 ounces of broth. Sauté all vegetables except spinach right in the soup pot.
3. After a few minutes of sautéing, add your spices (except bay leaves) to the pot.
4. After your spices start to smell amazing add uncooked pasta, drained beans, bay leaves, diced tomatoes, and vegetable broth. Note: you’re going to remove the bay leaves after the soup has cooked and before you eat it.
5. Bring your pot to simmer (small bubbles rise from the bottom and occasionally break surface) and allow your soup to cook until your pasta is cooked. Check the cooking time on your pasta packaging to guide you, it should be around 10 minutes.
6. Once the noodles are cooked, remove the bay leaves, add the spinach to your pot and stir it into the soup. Allow to sit and wilt for a few minutes, then serve.

Recipe Tips

• If you’re adding a lot of veggies or extra pasta, you’ll want to add some extra broth.
• If you’re adding more pasta, you’ll want to add more spices. The extra pasta tends to absorb the seasonings a bit and make the broth a bit bland.
• If you want to make this a gluten-free recipe you can use gluten-free pasta in place of the whole wheat noodles. Just be sure to reduce the cooking time (I use this rule: half the cooking time on the package minus 2 minutes).
• One of the things I love most about this vegetarian minestrone soup recipe is that it is so adaptable. The ingredient list makes a wonderful hearty soup, but you can change it up to your liking. You can also sprinkle red pepper flakes or parmesan cheese to the top if you’d like.
• Serve with crusty bread or a small salad.

Healthy Eating Plans

Serving size is 1 1/2 cups

Weight Watchers: 2 Blue Plan Points | 2 Green Plan Points | 1 Purple Plan Point per serving, as calculated on the WW website. The points are coming from pasta and beans. To make a zero point vegetable soup, remove the pasta and beans.

For the new 2022/2023 Plan this is a 1 point recipe when using fat free low sodium vegetable broth. The point is coming from the vegetable broth and pasta.

21 Day Fix/Portion Fix: 1 1/2 green containers, 1 yellow container per serving. To reduce yellow to 1/2 yellow per serving, reduce pasta to 1/2 cup uncooked and 1/2 cup total of beans.

Trim Healthy Mama: This is a great E recipe when substituting brown rice pasta for the wheat pasta. In the pressure cooker, cook the soup for 1/2 the amount of time on your package of pasta. Also, use minimal oil when sautéing.

2B Mindset: This recipe is perfect for a 2B Mindset lunch as is. It won’t work for dinner because of the pasta in the soup.

More healthy soup recipes

• Healthy Stuffed Pepper Soup with Bell Peppers
• Slow Cooker Chicken Bone Broth Soup
• Healthy Cream of Mushroom Soup
• Healthy Egg Drop Soup with Chicken
• Homemade Miso Soup Recipe
• Gazpacho Soup