Slow Cooker Minestrone Soup with Beans

Minestrone is the soup that forgives: almost any vegetable, two kinds of bean, a handful of pasta and a tomato broth, left to become something greater than the list. The slow cooker version is the most forgiving of all — the bowl in the photograph, thick with rotini, kidney beans and carrot coins and dusted with Parmesan, is what six quiet hours produce from fifteen minutes of chopping in the morning.

It sits in our Slow Cooker & Casseroles collection with Chicken Noodle Soup and Lentil Soup — the three soups we rotate all autumn. Everything goes in at once except the pasta and the soft greens, which join at the end so they stay distinct instead of dissolving into the broth.

That one piece of timing is the whole technique. Pasta cooked for six hours turns to paste and drinks the broth; pasta cooked in the hot soup for the last twenty minutes stays firm, as the rotini in the photograph clearly is. The same goes for spinach or zucchini — in at the end, bright and intact, not grey from a day in the cooker.

Building a broth with real body

A vegetable soup can taste thin from a slow cooker because nothing ever browns. Two small additions fix it without a separate pan. Tomato paste, stirred in at the start, cooks down over the hours into a deep, almost caramelised base, and a Parmesan rind — saved in the freezer for exactly this — melts its savoury richness into the broth all day. Fish the rind out before serving. A glug of olive oil and the grated Parmesan at the table, both visible in the photograph, finish what the cooker started.

Beans: two kinds, two jobs

Kidney beans give the soup its hearty, classic minestrone bite — they are the beans you can see whole in the bowl. Cannellini beans do quieter work: a portion of them break down over the long cook and thicken the broth from inside, so the soup eats thick without any flour or cream. Canned beans, rinsed, are the practical choice and go in at the start; unlike dried beans they are already tender, and the long, gentle heat will not toughen them in a tomato broth this size.

Ingredients

• 1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes (794 g)
• 6 cups vegetable or chicken stock (1.4 L)
• 1 (15 oz) can kidney beans (425 g), drained and rinsed
• 1 (15 oz) can cannellini beans (425 g), drained and rinsed
• 3 medium carrots (about 300 g), cut into coins
• 2 stalks celery (about 120 g), sliced
• 1 medium yellow onion (150 g), diced
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste (32 g)
• 3 cloves garlic (about 9 g), minced
• 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning (2 g)
• 1 teaspoon fine salt (6 g), plus more to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper (1.5 g)
• 1 Parmesan rind (about 30 g), optional
• 1 1/2 cups dry rotini pasta (150 g)
• 2 cups baby spinach (60 g)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan (50 g), to serve

Amounts are for the yield below. US customary measures first, grams in brackets for scale users.

Step-by-step instructions

1. Load the cooker. Put the tomatoes, stock, both beans, carrots, celery, onion, tomato paste, garlic, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper and the Parmesan rind if using into a large slow cooker. Stir once to distribute the tomato paste. Everything except the pasta, spinach and serving cheese goes in now — that is the entire morning job.
2. Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 7 hours or HIGH for 3 to 4 hours, until the carrots are completely tender and the broth tastes rich and unified. The cannellini beans will have softened the broth noticeably. Remove and discard the Parmesan rind, which will have given up all its flavour.
3. Add the pasta at the end. Turn the cooker to HIGH if it is not already, stir in the dry rotini, cover and cook for 18 to 22 minutes, until the pasta is just tender. Pasta cooked from the start would disintegrate and thicken the soup into stew — added now, it stays firm and distinct, as in the photograph.
4. Wilt the spinach and season. Stir in the spinach and let it wilt in the hot soup for 2 to 3 minutes. Taste carefully and adjust the salt — beans, stock and Parmesan all vary — and add a pinch of sugar only if the tomatoes made the broth sharply acidic. The soup should taste round, not flat.
5. Serve with Parmesan. Ladle into warm bowls, shower each with grated Parmesan and a thread of olive oil if you like, and serve with crusty bread. The soup thickens as it stands, so a bowl eaten an hour later will be spoon-standing — a feature, not a fault.

Nutrition estimate

Nutrition figures are estimates calculated from standard ingredient data for the yield stated. Your actual values will vary with brands, substitutions and portion sizes — treat them as a guide, not a guarantee.

Storage & reheating

Minestrone keeps, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 4 days, and the flavour improves overnight. The pasta keeps absorbing broth as it sits, so add a splash of stock or water when reheating and expect a thicker soup. For freezing, freeze the soup without pasta for up to 3 months and cook fresh pasta into it as it reheats — frozen pasta reheats soft and swollen.

Slow Cooker Minestrone Soup with Beans

Recipe by Ahsan ul Haq, FryDaily editor · Published 21 October 2026

Beans, rotini and vegetables in a rich tomato broth — the cooker does the work.

Yield: 8 servings  ·  Scale: 1x2x3x

Prep15 minutes

Cook6 hours

Total6 hours 15 minutes

Servings8 servings

Calories268 kcal

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Ingredients

• 1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes (794 g)
• 6 cups vegetable or chicken stock (1.4 L)
• 1 (15 oz) can kidney beans (425 g), drained and rinsed
• 1 (15 oz) can cannellini beans (425 g), drained and rinsed
• 3 medium carrots (about 300 g), cut into coins
• 2 stalks celery (about 120 g), sliced
• 1 medium yellow onion (150 g), diced
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste (32 g)
• 3 cloves garlic (about 9 g), minced
• 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning (2 g)
• 1 teaspoon fine salt (6 g), plus more to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper (1.5 g)
• 1 Parmesan rind (about 30 g), optional
• 1 1/2 cups dry rotini pasta (150 g)
• 2 cups baby spinach (60 g)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan (50 g), to serve

Tick ingredients off as you prep, and tap a step below to mark it done as you cook. Scaling adjusts the listed amounts - seasoning to taste stays your call.

Instructions

1. Load the cooker. Put the tomatoes, stock, both beans, carrots, celery, onion, tomato paste, garlic, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper and the Parmesan rind if using into a large slow cooker. Stir once to distribute the tomato paste. Everything except the pasta, spinach and serving cheese goes in now — that is the entire morning job.
2. Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 7 hours or HIGH for 3 to 4 hours, until the carrots are completely tender and the broth tastes rich and unified. The cannellini beans will have softened the broth noticeably. Remove and discard the Parmesan rind, which will have given up all its flavour.
3. Add the pasta at the end. Turn the cooker to HIGH if it is not already, stir in the dry rotini, cover and cook for 18 to 22 minutes, until the pasta is just tender. Pasta cooked from the start would disintegrate and thicken the soup into stew — added now, it stays firm and distinct, as in the photograph.
4. Wilt the spinach and season. Stir in the spinach and let it wilt in the hot soup for 2 to 3 minutes. Taste carefully and adjust the salt — beans, stock and Parmesan all vary — and add a pinch of sugar only if the tomatoes made the broth sharply acidic. The soup should taste round, not flat.
5. Serve with Parmesan. Ladle into warm bowls, shower each with grated Parmesan and a thread of olive oil if you like, and serve with crusty bread. The soup thickens as it stands, so a bowl eaten an hour later will be spoon-standing — a feature, not a fault.

Calories: 268 kcalProtein: 12 gCarbohydrates: 42 gFat: 6 gSaturated fat: 2 gSodium: 720 mgFiber: 9 gSugar: 8 g

Recipe by Ahsan ul Haq · FryDaily. Printing? This card is designed to print cleanly on its own.

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