Can I be honest with you for a minute?
I have no earthly idea if this is technically a “minestrone” or not. Go on, you try asking the internet what a minestrone is. And maybe you’ll read the first page of results and come back to me and say, “A minestrone is a thick soup of Italian origin made with meats, vegetables, and pasta. How hard is that to understand?” And I will sigh and shake my head because I was like you, once, filled with the confidence of the front page results of Google. But then I dug deeper and found that sometimes people put rice in their minestrone as a starchy component. Or beans. BEANS! Then a website like Serious Eats comes along (a website unlike this one where the people running it actually know what they’re talking about) and, according to them, you don’t have to necessarily add pasta or starch at all!
“Pasta is not a required ingredient for minestrone (as if anything is required), but it can be a nice addition and a good way to turn a substantial appetizer into a full meal.”
J. Kenji López-Alt, Serious Eats
And what of the vegetables? What vegetables go in minestrone? Pea soup, we know exactly what’s going in that, it’s going to have peas in it or you did it wrong. Potato Leek soup, it’s all right there in the name. There’s no room for ambiguity in that. If you say “This is my potato leek soup, and the secret is that it’s made with turnip and celery instead of potato and leek” then regardless of how delicious it is, you just made a different soup.
There are no such rules with minestrone. The only rule seems to be whatever vegetables you have on hand, and whatever you might want to make. So, I’m calling this a minestrone, because it’s a rich broth with a lot of good flavor, some nice body from the meat, and a little starchiness from the corn. You may disagree and if so you are welcome to tell your family it’s just “soup with meat and vegetables in it” instead. I promise not to be mad.
Beef & Sausage Spicy Minestrone
Ingredients
- 11 cups beef stock
- 1/8 cup kosher salt ONLY if you made homemade stock and didn't salt it. If you bought store-bought stock and add 1/8 cup of salt to it, your heart may explode out of your chest and I am not responsible.
- 1 pound ground beef or leftover meat from stock making
- 2 pounds frozen corn
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 3 drops hot sauce
- 3 drops Worcestershire sauce
- 1 pound bulk Italian sausage
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- 8 ounces sliced mushrooms
- 1 medium onion frenched
- 3 carrots peeled and cut into thin medallions
- 1 cup hot water
- 1/2 tablespoon seasoned salt
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 1/2 cups red wine
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
Instructions
- If starting from freshly made stock, skim off 3/4 of the top collagen & fat layer.
- Pour beef stock into a large pot and bring to a simmer
- Brown the ground beef and put into the pot. Or, if using leftover stock beef, shred and salt the beef and put into the pot.
- Add frozen corn, soy sauce, hot sauce, and worcestershire sauce
- Brown the sausage. Add garlic and heat for 30 seconds.
- Add mushrooms, onions, and carrots. Add water, seasoned salt, and cayenne pepper.
- Stir. Simmer pan uncovered until carrots are tender, about 15 minutes. Add to pot.
- Add red wine 1/2 cup at a time to your tastes – too much may be overpowering. Each half cup of red wine will cut some of the heat of the cayenne.
- Add cider vinegar. Bring to a rolling boil, ensure corn is cooked, and serve.
Make it? Love it?
