What Can I Use As An Alternative To Celery For Minestrone Soup?

Our answer

Nigella's recipe for Minestrone (from HOW TO EAT) includes celery as a base for the soup, along with onions and carrots. These three make up the traditional mixture of vegetables called mirepoix or soffritto, with the savouriness of celery balancing out the sweetness of the carrot. If you are using celery in cooking in this way and you don't want to use fennel then leeks would be a possible alternative. It won't be exactly the same, as leeks will give slightly more of an allium or onion flavour.

For salads that contain celery, we would probably suggest using peeled and deseeded cucumber as an alternative. Celery tends to add crunch to a salad and the cucumber should also provide this without affecting the other flavours of the salad.. But it depends on the recipe. If celery is a big component in the salad, such as Waldorf Salad, then it may be better to just increase the amounts of the other ingredients in the salad instead.