You Only Need 30 Minutes to Bring This Weeknight Minestrone to Your Family Table
Welcome to Rollover Dinners, a new monthly series to help you make smart use of leftovers. This week, we’re using leftovers from slow cooker chicken cacciatore to make easy work of this steaming pot of minestrone soup. Read the intro here.
When you’re on the hunt for a cozy meal, digging your spoon into a bowl of soup is always satisfying. It’s the OG comfort food if there ever was one. Many homemade recipes require hours of prep and stovetop time before a ladleful hits your bowl. But what if you could eliminate the work and pull together a satisfying pot in 30 minutes flat? Using leftovers from this slow cooker chicken cacciatore makes it totally possible.
Prego Farmers’ Market® Classic Marinara Sauce is what makes this soup so effortless. Pour it into your slow cooker with chicken, mushrooms, and bell peppers for a rich, satisfying meal that’s bursting with the flavor of sweet vine-ripened tomatoes and savory oregano. Shred the leftover juicy chicken and toss it into a pot with white beans, pasta, chicken broth, colorful veggies, and leftover sauce, and in next to no time you’ll have a big, steaming pot of minestrone soup ready to serve at your family table.
Weeknight Minestrone
Prep time 10 minutes
Cook time 20 minutes
Serves 4 to 6
Nutritional Info
Ingredients
- 8 ounces
frozen diced sweet potato or butternut squash
- 1 (about 15-ounce) can
white beans, such as cannellini or Great Northern
- 3
chicken thighs from Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore, or 2 cups shredded, cooked chicken
- 1 tablespoon
olive oil
- 1 1/2 teaspoons
kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon
freshly ground black pepper, plus more for serving
- 2 cups
Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore sauce or Prego Farmers’ Market® Classic Marinara Sauce
- 4 cups
(32 ounces) low-sodium chicken broth, such as Swanson®
- 1 cup
dry, short pasta, such as ditalini, macaroni, or small shells
- 1/2
medium lemon
- 4 cups
baby spinach (about 4 ounces)
Grated Parmesan cheese, for serving
Instructions
Drain and rinse 1 can white beans. Use your fingers or two forks to shred 3 Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore chicken thighs (discard the skin and bones) (about 2 cups).
In a Dutch oven over medium-high heat, add the frozen sweet potato, 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, oil, 2 cups Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore sauce, and 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the sweet potato is tender, 10 to 15 minutes.
Add 1 cup short pasta and the shredded chicken. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the pasta is al dente and the chicken is warmed through, about 8 minutes.
Squeeze 1 tablespoon lemon juice (from 1/2 lemon) into the soup and add 4 cups baby spinach. Cook just until the spinach wilts, 1 to 2 minutes. Ladle into bowls and serve with more black pepper and grated Parmesan cheese.