The rains are starting here in the Pacific Northwest and we are enjoying cozying up with this warm, quick, veggie soup.
Serves: 4-6
Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
1 tbsp tomato paste
3 cups seasoned white beans* (2 cans)
1 medium onion
3 carrots
4 cloves garlic
1 medium zucchini
dried oregano
dried thyme
pinch hot pepper flakes
14.5 oz diced tomatoes
4 cups vegetable broth, gluten-free option and soy-free option
14.5 oz water
1/2 lb pasta shells, gluten free option
4 large broccoli leaves (replace with chard if broccoli leaves are unavailable)
1/2 cup bean water
If you are cooking beans from dry, put them in Instant pot to cook (or cook these from scratch before you start your soup).
Heat a large pot of salty water (for cooking pasta). When this water comes to a boil, cook the pasta el dente (usually about 2 minutes less than the recommended cook time). Drain and rinse with cold water until fully cooled down to prevent clumping.
Heat oil in a large soup pot. Cut the onions and carrots and cook over medium high heat until onions are soft, about 10 minutes, stirring frequently. While these are cooking, cut the garlic and zucchini. Add the garlic and zucchini to the pot and cook for an additional 4 minutes. Add the oregano, thyme, hot pepper flakes, and tomato paste. Stir to coat, cooking for about 1 minute. Add the diced tomatoes, vegetable broth and the water. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.
Cut the greens into ribbons. Add the cooked pasta, beans, and greens to soup and simmer for a final 5 minutes. Add salt to taste. If you like, instead of using salt you can use bean water (if you cooked the beans from scratch) or vegetable bouillon paste. Serve and Enjoy!
*Cooking white beans from dry:
In the Instant Pot:
To cook the white beans in an Instant Pot, add 1 1/3 cups of dried white beans to the pot. Cover the beans with water (in the small Instant Pot this is about 6 cups of water), season with 1 1/2 tbsp kosher salt, 2 cloves garlic, 1 tbsp cumin, a sprig of rosemary, and 1/8 tsp cayenne. Set the Instant Pot to pressure cook for 28 minutes letting depressurize naturally. Drain and rinse, reserving 1/2 cup of the liquid, before adding to the dish.
On the stove:
If you don’t have an Instant Pot, you can easily cook white beans from scratch with a little planning. First you will need to soak the beans which can be done one of two ways. 1. you can soak them overnight making sure they have enough water and space to double in size or 2. you can put them in a pot and bring to boil, then turn off the water and let soak for one hour. Again, make sure you have enough water and space that they can double in size.
Once you have soaked your beans, rinse them and then put in a pot with salty water. These will be cooking for about 2 hours so you don’t want as much salt as you would use for pasta, but you do want to add enough that you can taste the salt. The best way to get good at this is to practice. Each time you salt the water, taste it and when the beans are done taste them to see if they are well salted. A well salted bean should taste flavorful but not salty. If it tastes like you are eating salt, you added too much. If the bean lacks flavor then you didn’t have enough salt.
For this recipe, also add 1 1/2 tbsp kosher salt, 2 cloves garlic, 1 tbsp cumin, a sprig of rosemary, and 1/8 tsp cayenne to the white beans as they cook. Cook the beans until they are soft but not falling apart (this will take 1.5-2 hours). We recommend checking the beans at about an hour and then every 20 minutes until they are soft but not disintegrating. Drain and rinse, reserving 1/2 cup of the liquid, before adding to the dish.
Make sure your pot has enough water as I have definitely cooked all the water off before and burnt the beans! This may seem like a lot of work, however once you get the hang of it the work is almost all passive and the reward is high: beans cooked from scratch taste much better and are much cheaper!
