Ribollita – Tuscan vegetable and bread soup
This hearty ribollita recipe from Tuscany is a triumph of humble Italian cooking. Made of stale bread and a mixture of vegetables, it is a delicious, nourishing soup that is more than the sum of its parts. The dish gets even better with reheating, so ensure you make plenty to enjoy the next day.
Ribollita is one of Tuscany’s many famous bread soups. Typically containing cavolo nero, savoy cabbage, cannellini beans and stale bread, the dish is part of the cucina povera tradition of humble, thrifty dishes, and will likely have contained whichever vegetables were available.
Ribollita means ‘reboiled’, and an essential step to this recipe is to let the soup chill before reheating later for added depth of flavour. Best made in big batches to feed yourself for the whole week, the soup will grow tastier with each day that passes!
Ingredients
Metric
Imperial
Canellini beans
- 150g of cannellini beans, soaked in cold water overnight
- 1/2 onion, peeled and cut in half (still attached at the root)
- 4 garlic cloves, unpeeled and bashed
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 sprigs of thyme
- salt
Ribollita
- olive oil
- 1 tsp fennel seeds
- 1 pinch of chilli flakes
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 carrot, peeled and diced into 1cm cubes
- 2 celery sticks, sliced
- 3 garlic cloves, sliced
- 3 plum tomatoes, quartered
- 2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into sixths
- 3 cavolo nero leaves, roughly chopped
- 2 savoy cabbage leaves, or swiss chard, sliced
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 sprig of rosemary
- 1 sprig of thyme
- 100g of stale bread, torn into rough 3cm chunks
- salt
- pepper
Method
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