Ribollita aka Tuscan Bread Soup
a love of the classics
Bread soup. Of all of my childhood dream menus, bread soup would have been right at the top. There is something luxurious about eating bread that has been bathing in an aromatic broth, olive oil , and cheese for hours. Give me any reason to eat copious amounts of bread and call it dinner and I am quite pleased. Ribollita literally translates to re-boiled; in the Italian kitchen you would use left over minestrone or vegetable soup and cook it with day old, staled bread scraps that needed to be repurposed. The bread thickens the soup turning it into a delicious stew and essentially, a new dish.
I keep this recipe fairly traditional with tomatoes, white beans, and kale but there is room here to get creative. Ideas; you could switch out your kale for chard or rapini. Maybe some Italian sweet sausage would be lovely. Consider fennel or thyme or rosemary as additional aromatics. Personalize this dish to suit your taste. If you like it more “soupy”, add another two cups of stock. This dish benefits from rusticity, no perfect knife cuts needed.
I made this dish as a collaboration with corto olive oil. Full disclosure I work with corto as a chef and olive oil educator and this post is shared with no strings attached. They released a Chef's Essentials Kit which has the most delicious baby plum tomatoes and really beautiful olive oil and asked me to make a recipe inspired by the kit. I shared a reel/ tutorial for making this dish on instagram that I will share here as well, it’s easy to follow along with when you make this recipe.
Happy Eating!
COOK THIS: RIBOLLITA
serves 4-6 people
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, small diced
8 cloves of garlic, minced
3 celery ribs, small diced
2 carrots, small diced
32 oz high quality whole canned tomatoes, peeled
15 oz canned white beans, drained
1 small piece parmesan rind (if you have it around, ok to omit)
1 quart of chicken stock (or veggie stock)
2 bunches lacinato kale, stemmed and chopped
1/2 boule, rustically torn and preferably stale
kosher salt
a hunk of parmesan, extra virgin olive oil, and fresh black pepper to garnish- quantities to your preference
Preheat your oven to 375 F
Heat olive oil over medium low heat. Add in your onion, garlic, celery and carrot. Sweat down for 5-6 minutes. Turn up the heat to medium and add in the tomatoes, white beans, and parmesan rind. Cover and bring to a gentle simmer. Add in chicken stock and 1/2 of the kale. Cover and bring back to a simmer. When there is more room, add the remaining kale. Cover and cook at on a gentle simmer for around 20 minutes. Salt to taste.
While the stew is cooking help stale out your torn bread by putting it the oven for 10 minutes.
Add half of the torn bread to the stew and stir. Add the remaining torn bread as a top layer. Add a healthy drizzle of olive oil and some grated parmesan. Place in the oven and bake, uncovered, for 20 minutes.
Remove from oven and serve immediately. Top with more parmesan, olive oil, and cracked pepper to your liking.