Heat up your winter nights with this slow cooker spicy minestrone soup.

Winter is my favorite time to try out new crock pot recipes.  My husband and daughter like it year round, but I’ve always been a “soup in the winter” kind of gal.  This recipe for slow cooker spicy minestrone soup is perfect for a cold winter night and also fits in with my new healthy eating idea of having a Meatless Monday.

Hearty soups (like my vegan butternut squash soup) are a great way to add some healthy fiber and nutrition to your menu. They are full of flavor and really comforting when the weather moves into the colder temperatures during the winter months.

For today’s soup, I gathered some spices and lots of veggies as well as some vegetable broth and my beans.  I used a 16 bean blend for this soup.  I loved the mix of beans in it and it makes a wonderfully flavorful soup that is very hearty.

I’m making my soup in my slow cooker.  If you have never tried to make soup this way, you don’t know what you are missing!  Everything just goes into the crock pot and all the ingredients and flavors come together while you can carry on about your day.  You can even leave it in the morning and come home to a hearty soup at dinner time with no kitchen work after the day is done.  

Look at these veggies!  Basically, you can use what you have on hand, but for today’s pot of soup, I had celery, carrots, onions, sweet yellow and red peppers, and garlic, as well as a can of diced tomatoes..    Cumin, chili, Kosher salt and cracked black pepper were added too.  The crock pot gets covered now and everything cooks for 6-8 hours on low or 3-4 hours on high.

An hour before the end of the cooking time, I added some multi grain pasta to the crock pot and continued cooking it. I used penne pasta but any will do.

This soup is just amazing.  All of the vegetables blend so beautifully with the beans and spices.  It has a bit of heat but not too much and has a very savory flavor.

Garnish the soup with some slices of avocado and some sour cream or grated cheese and settle in for a warm and comforting bowl of spicy minestrone soup.  

A crusty bread heated in the oven for the last 20 minutes of cooking time will round out the meal beautifully.  Have I said yet that I LOVE Meatless Monday?

Yield: 8

Slow Cooker Spicy Minestrone Soup

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Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 4 hours

Total Time 4 hours 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 cup of 16 bean soup mix
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 carrots, sliced small
• 2 sticks of celery diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• Kosher salt and cracked black pepper to taste
• 1 can of diced tomatoes (14 ounce)
• 2 tsp of cumin
• 2 tsp of chili powder
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 cup of multi grain penne pasta
• to Garnish:
• Slces of avocado
• Sour Cream
• Grated cheese

Instructions

Place all of the ingredients into the slow cooker except for the pasta and garnish ingredients. Mix well and cover and cook on high 3-4 hours or on low 6-8 hours.

hour before serving, add the multi grain penne pasta. Cook until it is tender.

Serve with crusty bread and garnish with avocado, sour cream or shredded cheese.

Makes 8 generous servings.

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