Full of fresh veggies from your garden or farmer’s market this recipe for Crock-Pot Chicken Minestrone Soup is full of great Italian flavor!
Crock-Pot Chicken Minestrone Soup
This delicious chicken minestrone soup recipe came about as a way for me to use up a few items from my garden as well as some of the items I have canned and put up in my pantry.
Last summer I canned over 20 pounds of kidney beans (yes, that is a LOT of beans!) with my pressure canner so I have been trying to find or create recipes that use up those kidney beans. Thankfully kidney beans are my kids favorite kind of beans!
From the garden zucchini and cabbage have done great for me and so this recipe includes both.
As with many of our slow cooker recipes this recipe is easily adaptable to use what you have in your fridge and pantry. You can easily replace the chicken with turkey, or use cooked leftover chicken/turkey instead of raw). You can use a different kind of bean (pinto beans, cannellini beans etc.), add a diced potato or two, use yellow summer squash instead of zucchini, throw in some canned or frozen corn, chopped celery…the list goes on and on.
Soup is so forgiving in that way!
I think one of my favorite things to add to recipes is cabbage. My family are not huge cabbage eaters, even though I LOVE it. But soups and stews are so easy to add it to because it cooks down to a cooked thin onion texture so they don’t even realize they are eating cabbage.
I have 4 more cabbages growing in my garden so I will have to come up with more recipes to sneak them into!
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| Servings | 8people |
| Prep Time | 20minutes |
| Cook Time | 8Hours on low |
- 2 pounds Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts or chicken thighs if you prefer dark meat
- 1 cup Cabbage shredded
- 1 large Yellow Onion finely chopped
- 1 large Zucchini sliced
- 2 cloves Garlic minced
- 1 1/2 cups Carrots chopped
- 4 cups Chicken Broth store bought or homemade
- 30 ounces Canned Kidney Beans drained and rinsed
- 28 ounces Canned Crushed Tomatoes
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 1/2 teaspoon Pepper
- 1 teaspoon Dried Basil
- 1/2 teaspoon Dried Oregano
- 16 ounces Elbow Macaroni Pasta cooked on stove top
- 1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese grated
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Ingredients
Servings: people
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- Line your slow cooker with a crock-pot liner if desired.
- Add all the cut up raw vegetables to the bottom of a 6 quart or larger slow cooker.
- Place the chicken on top of the vegetables.
- Add the canned tomatoes and kidney beans.
- Add your spices and then add the chicken broth, mix gently to combine.
- Cover and cook on LOW for about 7 - 8 hours or on HIGH for 3 - 4 hours until the chicken is cooked through and the vegetables are tender.
- Remove the cooked chicken from the slow cooker and place on a plate. Shred the chicken meat with two forks and add the shredded chicken back into the soup in the slow cooker.
- Durring the last 1/2 hour of cooking cook the pasta on the stove-top according the directions on the package until just al dente.
- Strain cooked pasta and add to soup right before serving.
- Top each bowl of soup with shredded Parmesan cheese and serve.
Feel free to adapt this recipe to use up whatever veggies and items in your pantry. Summer squash, corn, celery all taste great. Pinto beans, cannellini beans, navy beans all can be used instead of kidney beans. Different kinds of short pasta can be used. You can even use turkey instead of chicken!
Marie Gniazdowski says
October 7, 2017 at 10:29 AMThe Chicken Minestrone Soup was FANTASTIC, delicious!!
Lady Heidi says
October 8, 2017 at 5:02 PMSo glad you enjoyed it Marie!
Bonnie @ Tastykitchenn says
October 17, 2017 at 1:37 AMI have never tried Chicken Minestrone Soup. Definitely gonna give the recipe a try this week. Bet it will be tasty. Thanks for sharing.
Lady Heidi says
October 17, 2017 at 12:32 PMHope you like it Bonnie!