Minikube allows the creation of multiple Kubernetes clusters in a local development environment, enabling testing of Consul's cluster peering configurations. To set up Consul and mesh gateways for cluster peering, users must create a network with an IP address range, start Minikube with MetalLB, install Consul to the consul namespace, configure mesh gateways, peer clusters, and connect services between them. This setup allows testing of traffic between services across multiple Consul datacenters on different Kubernetes clusters before applying changes to production environments. The process involves creating a Docker bridge network, attaching each Minikube virtual machine to it, setting up MetalLB with IP address ranges, configuring Consul's proxies, and peering clusters. Users can run integration tests for services connecting across multiple Consul datacenters and Kubernetes clusters using this local testing environment.