Easy Juicer Pulp Minestrone Soup Recipe
Use leftover juicer pulp from juicing vegetables to make this simple, healthy minestrone soup recipe.
It must be the way I was raised but I have a thing about throwing stuff out. When items of clothing rip or tear, I do my best to extend their life by mending them. When products come in glass or durable plastic jars, I keep them to use for other things around the house. I save odds & ends from packaging to make junk sculptures with my boys. I recycle everything I can and compost food scraps to create dirt for our garden. All in all, our actual garbage output ends up being pretty low and that makes me happy!
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Save the Pulp from Juicing
One of the things I hate wasting is the pulp left over from juicing fruits and vegetables. Sure, I can throw it in my compost bucket but I’d rather go one step further and find a way to eat it. Juicer pulp is perfectly good, healthy food after all! When I make carrot apple juice, I use the pulp to make Carrot Apple Fiber Muffins but up until recently, I had not come up with a good use for the leftover pulp from green juices. I figured soup was probably the best place to sneak it in, so I got to work in the kitchen and came up with this recipe for Juicer Pulp Minestrone.
Make Juice Pulp Soup
OK, let’s get started. You saved your juice pulp, right? Here’s what I ended up with after making a glass of Sweet Greens juice from carrots, apple, ginger and swiss chard.
Start by sautéing some onions and garlic in a little olive oil. Then mix in the juice pulp and let it cook for about 5 minutes.
Next, add some chopped tomatoes (I prefer the Pomi brand because it comes in a box instead of a BPA-lined can) and some organic chicken broth. If you want to keep the soup meat-free, then use vegetable broth instead. Add the Italian seasoning now as well.
Bring those ingredients to a boil and let them simmer for about 15 minutes or so. Now you can add the beans (I cooked my own dried beans but you can use canned beans – just try to find BPA-free varieties) and pre-cooked pasta. If you want to add some cooked meat to your soup, now’s the time to add it. I sometimes add chicken sausages to make the boys happy.
Let everything cook for another 10 minutes or so. This soup is fantastic with a little Parmesan cheese and parsley sprinkled on top.
You may wonder if the apple and ginger pulp adds a strange flavor – they are certainly not traditional ingredients in Italian Minestrone soup! The apple adds just a slight sweetness and the ginger is so subtle you really don’t notice it. It all melds together nicely with the rest of the ingredients and makes for a really delicious soup, I promise! Proof positive: my boys gobbled it up and asked for more!
Juicer Pulp Minestrone Recipe
Easy Juicer Pulp Minestrone
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 medium onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 T olive oil
- 1½ cups pulp from juicer mix of carrot, apple, ginger and swiss chard
- 3 cups chopped tomatoes fresh tomatoes or 1 approx. 26-oz box or can
- 2 32- oz boxes organic chicken broth or vegetable broth
- 3 cups cooked kidney beans
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 3 cups small pasta such as orzo or rings cooked
Instructions
- Dice onion and garlic (or squeeze garlic through a press).
- Heat olive oil in a saute pan on medium/high heat.
- Add onion and garlic and cook until onion becomes translucent.
- Stir in juicer pulp and cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes.
- Add tomatoes, chicken broth and Italian seasoning.
- Bring to boil and let simmer for 15 minutes.
- Add cooked kidney beans and pasta.*
- Simmer for 10 more minutes.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- *Note: We sometimes add cooked chicken sausages at this point
Do you have any creative uses for the leftover pulp from juicing?
Yum! Good one, Micaela.
When I juice, I spend a ridiculous amount of time re-running the pulp multiple times through the juicer to try to eek out every bit of juice I can. I, too, feel funny dumping the leftovers in the compost bin.
Thanks for the inspiration (and delicious looking photos).
Warmly,
Alice
Wow – it never even occurred to me to run the pulp through the juicer again – cool idea Alice! Actually, I’m not even sure it would work with my juicer. I have a cold press type and it presses the heck out of it the first time through!
Well, it sounds like you might not need to re-press. I have an old Champion juicer, so to run it through again is simple — just pick up the pulp and throw it in where I normally put the veggies and fruit and press. My pulp is pretty wet the first time through; depending on what I’m juicing, I can get quite a bit more juice out this way.
I think I saw this suggestion online somewhere when I was first figuring out how to use my juicer. I certainly can’t take credit for it. 🙂
Warm hugs and happy juicing,
Alice
Made this yesterday and it was fantastic. Great recipe. Keep ’em coming — lotsa pulp to use up. Thanks!
So glad to hear you liked the recipe Casey!
Great idea. I made crackers once in our dehydrator but this is a something I hadn’t thought of before.
I throw it all in a pot with whatever seasonings and herbs I have add a can of tomatoes heat it up use a and blender and eat.
Yep, it’s really pretty simple to make. I don’t always use a recipe either.
Hi there! Fantastic advice! I have been making pumpkin soups from juice pulp (pumpkin, of course), adding various vegetables and spices according to the taste. Sometimes adding carrot juice pulp into other soups as well, but rarely. Our family treat usually is carrot “pancakes” as we call it, even though it’s more fritters than actually pancakes: http://ongreencarpet.blogspot.com/2011/12/autumn-delights-iv-carrot-pancakes.html Recently my mom also went creative and baked carrot juice pulp and seed mix cookies- delicious!!!
Ooooh, I love the carrot pancake idea! Totally going to try that next time I make carrot juice!
I use orange pulp to make jam ;))
Love that reuse idea Santhi! I haven’t made jam yet – but it’s on my bucket list.
This recipe for juice pulp minestrone soup was the BOMB!!!
Thank you
So glad you liked it!