Home » Recipes » Recipes By Occassion » Easy Entertaining Recipes » Slow Cooker Minestrone With Pesto

Slow Cooker Minestrone With Pesto

4.80 from 10 votes

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy.

Slow cooker minestrone with pesto is the perfect meal to tuck into your slow cooker on a busy day. It makes a great meatless Monday dish too! 

slow-cooker-minestrone

This post is brought to you as part of our ongoing collaboration with Fred Meyer/Kroger

Fall is in the air friends. My birthday was yesterday and that to me is always the signal that winter is coming. Today we will meander down to our local sushi restaurant and eat far too many delicious rolls and leave a gigantic tip to make up for all the rice my children are sure to leave on the floor. And then head to our local breweries Oktoberfest celebration and eat cake and drink beer while the kids frolic on the inflatable bouncy house.

italian-restaurant-minestrone

It’s been raining for 2 days straight and the light. I love the light. When you photograph food all day long in natural light there are many days were we have to….persuade, the light to do what we want. Shaping it and moving through out the studio to find what we want. But when it rains….heaven. It wraps around the food in a way that only the perfect dreary fall afternoon can.

slow-cooker-minestrone

Fortunately for us our local Fred Meyer (owned by Kroger) now offers the most amazing service ever called Click List. Last winter I started hearing friends raving about it in other parts of the country and I started tweeting at them asking…okay let’s be honest begging…them to bring it here.

And they did! Just another reason why we absolutely adore shopping here. Every week we prep our studio list and our home grocery list and order everything online. Then when it’s time to pickup we just drive up, call and these angels bring our groceries right out to the car. Cue the hallelujah chorus.

click-list


With two little busy boys in tow most of the time this is beyond life changing. Not having to drag them through the store (even though they do offer child care too at our store!) is incredible. We found everything we needed to create this delicious slow cooker minestrone there, from the delicious artisan bread to the gorgeous on the stem tomatoes and fresh basil, everything was on Click List!

They are very careful with our produce too which is incredibly important in our line of work. It’s been so great to have them take this aspect of our busy week off our plate entirely!

slow-cooker-olive-garden-minestrone


Serve this slow cooker minestrone soup with a nice big salad and slices of buttered bread for a perfect fall meal. If your garden is overflowing in summer too this is also a great way to use up tomatoes, green beans and fresh zucchini!

Happy slow cooking!

p.s if you love this slow cooker recipe check out our Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup too!

Rate & Review It

Slow Cooker Minestrone With Pesto Recipe

Slow cooker minestrone with pesto is the perfect meal to tuck into your slow cooker on a busy day. It makes a great meatless Monday dish too! 
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 7 hours
Total Time 7 hours 15 minutes
Servings 8 servings
Print Pin Recipe

Ingredients

  • ¼ cup butter
  • 1 medium onion , diced
  • 6 stalks celery, sliced
  • 2 cups diced carrots
  • 2 32 oz containers chicken stock
  • ½ cup red wine
  • 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, liquid included
  • 2 14.5 oz-16 oz cans white northern beans, drained
  • 1 8 oz can tomato paste
  • 5 tablespoons minced garlic
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 3 teaspoons salt
  • 1 ½ teaspoons pepper
  • 1 cup fresh green beans, optional
  • 1 zucchini , thickly sliced
  • 8 ounces elbow macaroni , use gluten-free noodles for this to be gluten-free!
  • Fresh pesto
  • Fresh parmesan cheese
  • Optional: fresh spinach

Instructions

  • Add butter, onion, celery, and carrots to a large slow cooker. Cook on high for 1 hour (alternatively you can cook in a pan over medium heat for 10 minutes until softened and add to slow cooker if you won’t be home.)
  • Add chicken stock, wine, tomatoes, beans, tomato paste, garlic, bay leaves, salt, and pepper. If adding green beans add here if you like them very tender or at the end if you prefer firmer.
  • Cook on high for 3 hours or low for 6 hours.
  • Just before you are ready to serve, add zucchini to slow cooker and cook pasta to al dente in a large stockpot.
  • Put noodles in the individual serving bows and ladle soup over the noodles.
    Serve with pesto, parmesan, and fresh spinach if desired.

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving | Calories: 247kcal | Carbohydrates: 32g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 1mg | Sodium: 1535mg | Potassium: 446mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 6803IU | Vitamin C: 13mg | Calcium: 68mg | Iron: 3mg
Author: Dani Meyer
Course : *Easy Entertaining Dishes
Cuisine : American
instant pot, dinner, slow cooker, soup, pesto, minestone, supper

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Kroger/Fred Meyer. All opinions are our own, we exclusively shop at our local Fred Meyer and are honored to work with them as an ambassador. Working with brands we love enables us to bring you beautiful recipes for free each week. 

EXPLORE OUR GORGEOUS CAMPING COOKBOOK!

Stress Free Camping Book.

Camp cooking just gotten taken to a whole new level. From family favorites to cocktails, The Stress Free Camping Cookbook has a recipe for your next trip or backyard fire!

Dani Avatar

About Dani Meyer

Hi, I’m Dani! I’m most importantly mama to 3 wild little dudes. I spend my days cooking, photographing and exploring the Pacific Northwest. I'm a full time food blogger and online business coach.

I’m the author of Stress Free Camping, a 120+ page guide on making epic food in the woods. I’m also the founder of Food Blogger Entrepreneurs, the leading online academy and private community for food bloggers. → More About Dani

More posts by this author.

16 thoughts on “Slow Cooker Minestrone With Pesto”

  1. 5 stars
    I LOVE ClickList, it is a life saver for me! I’ll be adding the ingredients for this recipe to my next order 🙂 Love your content!

    Reply
  2. 4 stars
    I’ll have to add this to next week’s meal plan. So perfect! Also, with so many little people in the house, I can’t imagine going back to a life without ClickList. Saves money (I don’t add unnecessary extras to the cart), saves time, saves my sanity. End of story. 🙂 I was actually amazed at how many items are online and how specific it is to each thing. They did a fabulous job with it! ?? (And the rate thingy wouldn’t let me give this 5 stars. Don’t be sad. Just know the truth in your heart ?)

    Reply

Leave a Comment

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.