Using Leftover Meat Sauce for a Hearty Meat Minestrone Soup

This recipe uses my Meat Sauce of Ground Beef & Sausage http://newmomstartingfromscratch.blogspot.com/2012/03/meat-sauce-with-ground-beef-and-sausage.html to make this Leftover Hearty Meat Minestrone Soup.This soup is basically inspired by Minestrone Soup, but not a true Minestrone Soup. Now you don't need to use my leftover meat sauce recipe to make this soup, I am sure the idea will work with whatever you have, even if it is a jar of prepared sauce. However, my meat sauce has ingredients that don't require you to add ingredients to this soup recipe (also allowing to cut cost) so if you make this version I don't want you to be disappointed if your version seems to be missing something, but don't be afraid to try it with what you have!

3 cups of Leftover Meat Sauce
2 Carrots diced
2 Celery Sticks diced
1 small onion diced
2 cups of Beef Stock
1 15oz can of White Kidney Beans or called Cannellini OR Dark Kidney Beans
1 tablespoon of Worcestershire Sauce
1 Zucchini diced
1/4 cup of frozen green beans
1/4 cup chopped frozen spinach.
1 cup of cooked macaroni noodles (cook separately from soup, or use whatever leftovers you have)


Some other ingredients you could add to this soup, depending on your taste buds is.... If you want a vinegar salty depth add  1/4 cup of sliced Green Olives, or add 1 tablespoon of Capers. If you want some extra heat add a pinch or 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes depending on your heat preference. Or use 1 tablespoon of pickled/jar sliced jalapenos, this will also give heat and add some vinegar saltiness.

Depending on what you have on hand this Soup should cost you less then $5 and equal about 8-10 servings. You get a lot of bang for you buck when you use my Meat Sauce recipe.

Saute your onions, carrots and celery all together with a dash of oil in pan. Let saute on a medium temperature for 5 min, then add Worcestershire Sauce and let simmer for 2 mins or until liquid seems reduced into onion mixture. Then add everything else but the pasta, zucchini, spinach and green beans. If you are using fresh green beans and not frozen you could add now.

Now I let my soup cook for 4 hrs on a very low temperature, you don't need to cook it that long. I think 2 hours is plenty! Even if you only cooked for 30min to 1 hour, that should be fine. However if you are doing a short cook, add everything at once (but noodles) and don't hold back. Do not add salt or pepper until you taste it, may not need it. Depending on how long you choose to cook soup, just wait to the last hour to add the frozen green beans, zucchini and spinach.

 I realized after I cut the carrot I need to dice into smaller pieces because I have a toddler, personally I like the rounds better for look.

 Worcestershire Sauce

 Added Zucchini, Frozen Spinach and Green Beans.

 Getting ready to serve

 Sorry not a good picture...I was in a hurry and was going for my 2nd bowl when I realized I never took a picture. Mr Tasteful had locked himself out of his car at Costco, so I had to rush to his side to unlock the car, then I only had 10 min to eat before my 7:30 appointment. So I did not have time to clean up my bowl it looks messy...But this soup was amazing!!!! So many depth of flavors from my original recipe of Meat Sauce using wine and sausages, then my leftover soup having Worcestershire Sauce, it was great depth of flavor.

Meat sauce with Ground Beef and Sausage

(No pictures at this time of the cooking process, my photo was my leftover sauce )

I made some great meat sauce that I was very proud of last night. I made Beef Merlot by Chef John Foodwish.com, this past weekend using "my method", and it was  amazingly good! I will post recipe one day LOL, when I have time. But making that recipe helped me with the idea of using Wine to cook with. Now this may not be a new idea for anyone else, but for me it was something new that I "learned". I have used wine before to cook my Spaghetti Sauce only I did not enjoy it as much, and bc the cost of wine is an expensive ingredient I choose not to use wine.

 I LOVE TRADER JOES and I am sorry they are not in every state and city. They make the cost of cooking less expensive therefore more achievable to cook other items on a tight budget. They have a cheap wine they nickname "Two Buck Chuck", its called Charles Shaw. It is their "house wine" and it use to be $2.00, why it had the nickname, the current price is now $2.50 a bottle. The wine is the best wine I have tasted for under $5! Its even better if you let it breath (or just uncork) for a few hours, or better yet for a day or two. So using wine in my recipes is easier because it is more budget friendly. If you are not able to go to TJ, Walmart actually has a cheep wine for $3, I use to buy that in the past, but I enjoy TJ wine more. So this post is suppose to be about??? LOL Oh yes, Meat Sauce! My meat sauce turned out successfully using wine this time, and with Two Buck Chuck I will do again, and again and again :)

My tip for using Canned Tomatoes is this...Don't buy the cans of Tomato Sauce, buy either Whole Tomatoes or Crushed Tomatoes, why?  Personally I find that the more they cook the tomatoes it changes the flavor and the canned Tomatoes (with the exception if you can them yourself) taste more bitter. So I have found better success NOT using Canned Tomato Sauce.

2 - 29oz cans of Crushed Tomatoes
1 14 oz can of Diced Tomato
1 lb 80/20 Ground Beef
Pkg of 4 Sweet Italian Sausage (I used Trader Joes)
1/2 Cup of Red Wine ( I used what was open Shiraz)
1 Medium Yellow Onion (I was able to buy Organic Yellow onions 3lb bag for $2 )
4 cloves of Garlic (diced)
Dried Herbs: 1 tablespoon of Sweet Basil, 1/8 teaspoon of (or pinch) Rosemary, and 1/2 teaspoon of Thyme. Then Salt (if need, only measure 1 teaspoon of Salt) & Pepper to season to taste.

Place a heavy pot on high heat and break up ground meat into large chunks, just use your hands. You want the meat to brown for 2 mins, then add diced onion and cook for 1 min then turn heat down to a medium-high heat. Let cook for 5 min. Then add 1/2 cup of wine. Cook until wine seems reduced and creates a thick type of sauce, the texture of chocolate syrup. Took me about 5 mins to get the right consistency. Next add diced garlic and all the dried seasoning and salt & pepper. Stir together until combined let simmer for 1 min. Next add cans of Tomato sauce and diced tomato. Let simmer, in the mean time take each link of Sweet Italian Sausage and cut into 3 sections, about 2 or 3 inches thick. Once your sauce has began to simmer add sausage to pot. Place lid on pit and turn down temperature to a Low simmer, depending on how your stove top radiates heat will depend on what temperature this requires. I have to place mine on a level 2, then on Low. Let cook for at least 2 hours.

You could cook this for longer then 2 hours, just be careful not to let liquid reduce so much that it burns, you may need to add 1/2 cup of water after the 3rd hour. If you plan on letting this simmer for longer then 3 hours, I would add extra wine in the beginning because adding water will water down the flavors. So use 3/4 cup of wine at the beginning of processes. If you want to use a crock pot, make sure your brown the meat,onions and reduce wine in a separate pot/pan, then add to crock pot once your are ready to place cans of Tomatoes and simmer on low for 8hrs.

The total cost for this sauce was about $10, I am able to get at least 8 to 10 servings. It all depends of course how much you are able to buy your ground meat, sausage and cans of tomatoes. The ground meat at Trader Joes is $2.50 for 1lb, and the sausages cost $3.00. I was able to buy the 29oz can of Crushed tomato for $1.29 each and the diced tomato for $.59 and of course my bottle of wine was $2.50 (only used 1/2 cup though).

Next I will be using my leftover Meat Sauce to make into a Soup as an alternative leftover recipe. Of course I LOVE meat sauce and spaghetti and would always eat it the original way it was intended for LOL but my Mr.Tasteful prefers to eat pasta once a week. So with the exception of about 2 cups I have reserved for myself to use with pasta, I will have about 3 cups leftover to use in a soup.

I know this is a horrible picture!!! I am ashamed to post it, but I never got around to taking a picture. But this was my sauce the next day after I removed my 3 cups for my Leftover Meat Sauce soup. I will try and take a picture when I make my leftovers.I can tell by this picture how important presentation is, please do not let this discourage you from trying this recipe. It is a good one!