Ribollita is a Tuscan soup made with a wine and tomato base, greens, beans, and veggies. It is thickened with bread (we added the bread cubes as we ate it) and served with parmesan cheese. We absolutely loved this recipe. My husband, who is a major BBQ/meat kinda guy actually asked if I’d make it again. Big win for a vegetarian dish!
The base of the soup starts with olive oil, onion, garlic, celery and carrot. Caramelized tomato paste and red wine add tons of flavor, and greens and butter beans give it body. The toasted bread cubes taste amazing mixed into the rich tomato broth and the parmesan is a nice salty kick. This soup was easy to make and didn’t take all that long, but had a huge amount of flavor. Definitely will be a repeat around here.
I used this seeded bread I had in my freezer for the bread cubes and it worked so well. You can use any hearty, crusty bread for this, you just don’t want to use sandwich type bread because it will turn into mush too quickly. Traditionally you stir the bread in to thicken the soup, but I made mine pretty thick to start with and we added the bread cubes and stirred in as we ate and I loved it like that.
Ribollita
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 medium onion diced
- 4 medium carrots diced
- 4 celery stalks diced
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- salt and pepper
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 cup red wine
- 1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
- 1 quart chicken or vegetable stock
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan or a parm rind
- 1/2 lb bread cut into cubes and toasted with olive oil in a pan until crispy and sprinkled with salt
- 1 bunch chard or spinach washed
- 1 15oz can butterbeans
- parm for serving
Instructions
- Heat oil in large soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, carrot and celery and a pinch of salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste, red pepper flakes, italian seasoning, garlic powder and onion powder and cook for 2-3 minutes, allowing the tomato paste to caramelize a bit.
- Pour in the wine, bring to a boil and allow to boil until the wine is reduced by half. Add the stock and tomatoes, as well as the rind if using. If using grated parm, slowing sprinkle it over and mix in so that it doesn't clump. Taste and adjust the seasonings.
- Reduce heat to low and add the greens and beans and simmer for 30 minutes until everything is cooked and well combined.
- In a skillet, add some oil and toast the bread cubes until browned and crispy and sprinkle with salt. Set aside to serve with the soup.
- Adjust the seasoning and ladle soup into bowls. Top with bread and parm at the table.