Clean the cabbage. Finely chop the carrots, celery, and onion to make the base for the soup.

Add the diced potato to the base and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste. Add the spinach.

Add the cabbage and chickpeas, stir, cover, and cook for about 30 minutes. If you’re using home-cooked beans and chickpeas, keep plenty of their cooking liquid. If using canned beans, drain and rinse them, then add enough water to the soup as needed, along with 1 teaspoon of salt. Mash some of the white beans.

Mash some of the beans to create a creamy texture in the soup. After the first 30 minutes, add the white beans and cook over medium heat for another 30 minutes with the lid slightly ajar.

Toward the end, taste and adjust the salt and pepper. Turn off the heat and let the soup rest for 10 minutes. Serve with toasted or day-old bread. I used some leftover gluten-free rolls I had on hand.

Ladle some soup into the bottom of each bowl, add pieces of bread, then more soup, and finish with a sprinkle of pepper.

Unfortunately, there’s never any soup left for the next day’s ribollita. 💁‍♀️