Ribollita Toscana - Tuscan Ribollita Soup

Turn your leftover bread into this Italian classic! Ribollita is a rustic, hearty Tuscan soup that gets its name from the concept of "re-boiling" the ingredients to create a nutritious recipe. This dish is another great example of la cucina povera and is packed full of vegetables, leafy greens and beans - all the good stuff! Each family has their own version and we tend to use whatever is in season or available that day alongside leftover, old, stale bread. If you’ve never tried it you have to make this one.

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• 1 onion
• 1 celery stick
• 1 carrot
• 2 sprigs of thyme
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 100g savoy cabbage
• 100g chard
• 100g cavolo nero
• 1 potato
• 250g of cooked cannelloni beans
• Fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 250g bread in slices (stale, old or toasted)
• Extra virgin olive oil

Method

1. Start by peeling and roughly dicing the onion and the celery and carrot into 1 cm cubes. Peel and cut the potatoes into 2 cm cubes and roughly chop the leaves of the savoy cabbage, chard and cavolo nero into large pieces, discarding any tough roots or middle parts. The stalks of the chard are less tough and much more sweeter in flavour so you can chop these into 1 cm cubes as well.
2. In a large pot, add a generous glug of extra virgin olive oil.
3. Add the celery, carrot and onion to the pot and give it a good stir. Add the stalks of the chards as well and cook for 10 to 15 minutes on a medium heat, constantly stirring. 
4. Make some space in the middle of the pot and add a tablespoon of tomato paste, cook for 30 seconds and and stir it in. 
5. Add in the diced potato and the fresh thyme sprigs, a generous pinch of salt and all of the leafy greens.
6. Cover with water and let it gently bubble away for about 45 minutes.
7. Remove and discard the thyme sprigs and add in the cannellini beans.
8. Transfer a few ladles of the soup to a bowl or jug and blitz until smooth. Add this mixture back to the pot. This helps to thicken the sauce.
9. At this point, the soup is already delicious as it is. But to make a ribollita, now you add the stale bread.
10. In a separate pot or bowl, layer two slices of the stale bread at the base and cover them with the soup. Repeat this again until you finish all the stale bread. Cover and leave the pot or bowl in the fridge for at least three hours or overnight.
11. When you remove the ribollita from the fridge it should look solid. Gently bring it back to a boil and give it a good stir to break down the bread. If it's still a bit too solid you can loosen it by adding a little bit of stock or water to make it more like a soup. Adjust the consistency as you prefer.  
12. Serve it while it's still nice and warm.

Watch the recipe video

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