Jamie Oliver’s bread and borlotti bean soup is a thick, rustic Italian ribollita-style soup that cooks frozen soffritto, tinned tomatoes, tinned borlotti beans and chunks of stale sourdough together in stock, then tops it with torn mozzarella and grills it bubbling. It takes 20 minutes from start to table, serves six, and comes in at 293 kcal a bowl.
The recipe is from Jamie’s 20-Minute Meals (2012). The stale bread isn’t a topping or a side: it goes straight into the pot and breaks down as it cooks, thickening the broth into something halfway between a soup and a stew. That’s the Tuscan ribollita trick, where yesterday’s bread becomes today’s dinner, and it’s why Oliver specifies stale sourdough rather than fresh.
The crispy sage is the finishing touch that makes it his. You fry the leaves first in olive oil until they shatter, set them aside, then use that fragrant sage oil as the base for the whole soup. Every spoonful carries that herby, toasted flavour from the very first step, and the whole crispy leaves go back on top at the end for crunch.
Jamie Oliver Bread & Borlotti Bean Soup
Course: Soups, SidesCuisine: British, ItalianDifficulty: Easy6
servings10
minutes10
minutes293
kcal20
minutesJamie Oliver’s 20-minute ribollita from Jamie’s 20-Minute Meals: stale sourdough, borlotti beans and tomatoes simmered thick, topped with mozzarella and grilled until bubbling, finished with crispy fried sage. A storecupboard supper for six.
Ingredients
1 bunch of sage (20g)
500g frozen chopped mixed onion, carrot and celery
2 cloves of garlic
300g stale sourdough bread
2 x 400g tins of plum tomatoes
2 x 400g tins of borlotti beans
700ml organic vegetable or chicken stock
25g Parmesan cheese
1 x 125g ball of mozzarella cheese
Directions
- Fry the sage:Turn the grill on to high. Heat a large shallow ovenproof casserole on medium-high with 4 tablespoons of olive oil and pick in the sage leaves. Fry until crispy, then remove to a plate, leaving the fragrant oil behind.
- Cook the veg:Add the frozen mixed veg to the pan, peel and finely slice in the garlic with a splash of water. Cover and cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Build the soup:Chop the bread into 3cm chunks. Turn the heat up to high, pour in the tomatoes and break them up, then add the beans with all their juice, the stock and the bread. Stir and mash together for 5 minutes, then finely grate in the Parmesan and season.
- Grill:Tear over the mozzarella and transfer carefully under the hot grill for 5 minutes, until the cheese has melted and the soup is bubbling.
- Finish:Sprinkle over the crispy sage and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.
FAQs
Why stale bread, and what if mine is fresh?
Stale sourdough is the structural ingredient, not a garnish. It breaks down as it simmers in the broth, thickening the soup into the dense, porridgy consistency that defines a Tuscan ribollita. Fresh bread absorbs liquid too but holds its shape longer and can make the soup gluey rather than velvety.
If your sourdough isn’t stale, cut it into chunks and dry it out in a low oven for 10 minutes, or leave it uncovered on the counter overnight. Any sturdy, open-crumbed bread works: ciabatta, pain de campagne, or a country loaf. Avoid sliced white, which dissolves too fast into paste.
Can I use dried borlotti beans instead of tinned?
You can, but not in 20 minutes. Dried borlotti beans need soaking overnight and cooking for 45-60 minutes before they’re tender enough for this soup. Tinned beans are the whole point of Oliver’s 20-minute format: they’re already cooked, and their starchy liquid thickens the broth as it simmers, so don’t drain them.
If you do cook from dried, the soup improves: home-cooked borlottis are creamier and hold their shape better. Cannellini beans are the closest tinned swap if you can’t find borlotti, and they’re the traditional bean in a classic ribollita.
What is ribollita, and is this one?
Ribollita is a Tuscan bread soup, literally “reboiled,” traditionally made by reheating yesterday’s minestrone with stale bread stirred through until it thickens into something more stew than soup. It’s a peasant dish built on leftovers, frugality and the Italian refusal to waste bread.
Oliver’s version hits the same notes, stale bread, beans, tomato, soffritto, Parmesan, but compresses the time with frozen veg and tinned beans. Purists would argue it’s a fast-track ribollita rather than the real thing, since traditional versions simmer longer, but the principle is identical and the result is genuinely close.
Why fry the sage first?
Two reasons. The fried sage leaves become brittle, shattery crisps that add crunch and intense herby flavour when scattered over the finished soup. And the oil they fry in absorbs their fragrance, so when the vegetables go in next, they’re cooking in sage-scented olive oil from the start.
It’s a classic Italian technique: fry your aromatics in oil to flavour the fat, then build the dish in that fat. Oliver uses it constantly, and it’s the single step that stops this tasting like tinned soup with bread in it. Don’t skip it, and don’t let the sage burn; golden and crisp is the target, not dark and bitter.
Do I need an ovenproof pan?
Yes, because the soup goes straight from the hob to under the grill with the mozzarella on top, so the pan has to handle both. A large enamelled cast-iron casserole is ideal: it holds heat well on the hob and survives the grill. A stainless-steel pan with no plastic handles also works.
If you don’t have one, ladle the soup into individual ovenproof bowls, tear mozzarella over each, and grill those instead, which gives you individual gratinéed servings. Just make sure nothing with a plastic or wooden handle goes under the grill.
What can I serve it with or after?
It’s substantial enough on its own, at nearly 300 kcal a bowl with bread, beans, two cheeses and olive oil. A sharp green salad dressed with lemon and olive oil is the classic Italian follow-up, cutting through the richness of the melted mozzarella and Parmesan.
For a fuller meal, serve it as a hearty starter before something simple, since it’s too rich to precede another heavy main. The storecupboard, 20-minute spirit of this soup is genuinely its greatest strength: it’s the kind of thing you make on a cold Tuesday from what’s already in the cupboard, not a planned occasion.
