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Easy Tuscan Bean Soup – Oh And It’s Healthy Too
October 3rd, 2016 by Audrey Weidman
This past summer I grew kale in my garden for the first time, and what I’m discovering is that the cooler the weather gets, the better the kale becomes. In the summer, kale can have a bitter edge to it, but with cooler weather that bitterness seems to go away. And the kale just just keeps growing and growing. As the weather is starting to get cooler, I get out my soup pot!
I was wanting an easy tuscan bean soup recipe where kale was one of the ingredients. A great thing about kale is that it maintains its texture in soup – a nice firm leaf that looks good and is oh-so-good for you. Beans are almost always in my soups, but the cannellini’s have a great comforting texture that compliments the kale texture nicely. The beans, kale, and homemade chicken bone broth that I had on hand, were the star ingredients for an excellent soup – both tasty and healthy.
The pepper flakes add a nice bit of heat – you can experiment to see what level you like the best. In all this will take you about 30 min to make. If it isn’t eaten up when you make it, leftovers are good in the fridge for 5 days or you can freeze the remainder. In our house, it gets eaten up.
Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil,
- 1 medium onion, diced (about 1 cup)
- 2 medium carrots, diced (about 1 cup)
- 2 ribs celery, diced (about 1 cup)
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/4 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
- 1 quart homemade or low-sodium canned chicken broth
- 2 (15-ounce) cans white beans (cannellini or great northern) rinsed
- 4 6-inch sprigs rosemary
- 3 bay leaves
- 4 cups roughly chopped kale
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano for serving
Directions:
Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add onions, carrots, and celery and cook, stirring frequently, until softened but not browned, about 3 minutes. Add garlic and dried red pepper flakes and cook, stirring constantly until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add chicken broth, beans and their liquid, rosemary stems, parmesan rind, and bay leaves. Increase heat to high, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a bare simmer, add kale, cover and cook for 15 minutes.- Discard the bay leaves and rosemary sprigs. Use an immersion blender to roughly puree part of the beans until desired consistency is reached. Or transfer 2 cups of soup to a blender or food processor and process until smooth (start on low speed and increase to high to prevent blender blow-out). Return to the soup pot and stir to combine. Don ‘t skip this step – it gives you the right amount of creamy/chunky texture. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Ladle into bowls and grated of Parmigiano-Reggiano, and serve with crusty whole grain bread.
Recipe adapted from InspiredEats.com.
Looks great! I have Swiss Chard in the fridge so I will make it with that tonight.
Thanks for sharing an easy, healthy, and I’m sure delicious recipe! 🙂
Swiss chard is a sturdy green as well and should complement the beans as well. Let me know how it goes.