Black Bean Soup

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This recipe is a simple and delicious black bean soup that is so quick and easy to prepare and a great hearty soup for winter! Beans are a staple food for a reason!

For more delicious soup recipes, why not make this recipe for Brunswick Stew? Or make some Homemade Bread Bowls to go with this?

Black Bean Soup

Black bean soup is one of those classic soup recipes that use a cheap, easy to prepare, and delicious bean and turns it into a soup that makes you forget about winter entirely.

Filling, healthy, and super delicious, this soup should leave you feeling like you won’t need to eat again for a few days at least.

Black Bean Soup Ingredients

Make sure you look at the recipe card at the very bottom for the exact amounts so that you know exactly what to buy for this recipe.

• Vegetable oil
• Medium onion
• Green bell pepper
• Carrot
• Garlic
• Can of black beans
• Chicken broth
• Cooked ham
• Cumin
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper
• Cheddar cheese
• Sour cream

How To Make Black Bean Soup

• Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat
• Add the onion, bell pepper, carrot, and garlic, cooking for 5 minutes or until tender
• Add in 1 of the can of drained black beans and chicken broth
• In a blender, puree the other can of black beans until smooth and then add into the pot
• Bring the soup to a boil, and then reduce heat to low
• Stir in ham, cumin, salt, and pepper and then allow to simmer for 15 minutes
• Garnish with Cheddar cheese and sour cream to serve

Why Blend Some Of The Black Beans Separate From The Rest?

If there is one trick that every home cook would benefit from learning, it is the joy of heterogeneity.

Some soups have the sad tendency of being only one consistency, color, and texture – this is usually the case with any kind of blended soup; everything just tastes the same and is the same texture.

This homogeneity, where every bite tastes and feels the same, can leave the whole meal feeling a bit prison food-esque, so a little bit of variety can actually really help shake up the whole soup.

To get this heterogeneity, you only blend half of your beans, leaving the other half unblended in the soup. This not only gives you whole pieces of beans scattered throughout your soup, giving some extra bite to each mouthful, it also leaves you with that little bit of variety and surprise, as not every bite is going to be the same.

You can also achieve this variety by adding in extra ingredients to the top of your soup at the end. While this recipe adds cheese and sour cream, you could make it even more delicious by topping with some whole toasted cumin seeds or some cilantro leaves as well! 

Do You Have To Use Canned Beans For This Recipe?

This recipe calls for some cans of black beans to provide the majority of the calories and flavor for this recipe. However, there is nothing stopping you from using dried beans instead.

Dried beans have a lot of advantages over using canned beans – they are super easy to keep in the cupboard, thanks to their small size, and they are massively cheaper as well. Plus, they are a lot better environmentally than having to buy a bunch of waste-producing cans that you have to throw away at the end.

The only thing to keep in mind with dried beans is that they need soaking before you can use them. So, if you are planning on using dried beans for this recipe, make sure to plan ahead and soak them in plenty of cold water for at least 12 hours.

While black beans aren’t actually dangerous if you skip the soaking step, their texture will definitely be very off if you don’t pre-soak them, so don’t forget! You can also lightly salt the water, about 1 teaspoon of fine salt per liter of water, to help improve the texture of the beans even more.

Looking for more delicious Soup recipes? Try these out:

• Beer Cheese Soup
• Nokedli (Hungarian Dumplings)
• The Best Seafood Stock

Enjoy!

Love,

Karlynn

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