Black Bean Soup

This hearty and delicious Black Bean Soup is a quick and easy dinner recipe made from canned black beans, pasta, bacon, and vegetables. It is perfect for taking care of leftovers, and you can easily adapt it to make it vegetarian!

Why You'll Love This Black Bean Soup with Canned Beans 

• Quick and easy: Make this soup dish in less than 30 minutes with ingredients you may already have in your pasta such as canned beans, pasta, broth, and vegetables.
• Comforting: It is perfect for cold days in the Fall and Winter.
• Budget-friendly: All the ingredients are affordable and you can use leftovers to make this dish.
• Nutritious: It is rich in fiber (from the beans and vegetables) and high-protein. It is also dairy-free, low-carb (not keto), and can be gluten-free.

Black Bean Soup Recipe 

Fall has arrived in Texas now, with temperatures getting lower and lower. Along with the cool weather comes the need for some warm, comforting dishes, including this quick and hearty Black Bean, Pasta, Bacon, and Vegetable Soup -- which I call Brazilian Black Bean Soup. If you have ever tasted a classic minestrone, I know you will become a fan of our soup.

Minestrone means "a big soup"... or a thick vegetable soup of Italian origin made with beans, pasta, or rice, and lots of vegetables such as onions, celery, carrots, and tomatoes. Sometimes it may contain pancetta. 

Ours contains the same ingredients but with a few variations. White beans have been replaced by black beans, a popular ingredient in Brazilian cuisine... and I have also added bacon to the soup (just as one would find in a feijoada).

Although this type of soup is known as 'sopa de feijão com macarrão e verduras' (black bean soup with pasta and vegetables), it is actually a variant of the Italian minestrone -- well, at least this particular version of black bean soup.

I can only imagine that this must be due to the influence of Italian immigration in Southern Brazil.

I remember my mother used to make hers by pureeing either pinto bean or black bean leftovers in the blender and then cooking them with angel hair pasta -- and oh how I used to love its comforting flavor.

But there is more than one version of black bean soup in Brazil. Most of them are made with pinto beans or black beans (pureed or not), a pasta of one's choice, and other optional ingredients such as bacon, beef, or sausage, and a variety of different vegetables.

Ours is more similar to the Southern Brazilian version.

Ingredients and Substitutions

To make this black bean soup recipe you will need:

• 5 strips of thick smoked bacon, chopped (omit it for a vegetarian or vegan version, and use about 2 tablespoons of olive oil to sautee the veggies)
• ½ large yellow onion, chopped ( or use white onion)
• ⅓ cup diced carrots (if using baby carrots, simply slice them into rounds)
• ⅓ cup diced celery
• 30-ounce can of black beans, or homemade black bean leftovers (or 2 cans of 15 ounces each)
• 4 cups beef stock (or vegetable stock for a vegetarian recipe)
• 1 cup canned diced tomatoes, and their juice
• Salt and pepper to taste (you may add a pinch of ground cumin if you want)
• 1 cup mezzi rigatoni pasta, or any other small pasta of your choice such as macaroni or pasta shells
• 1 bay leaf
• Chopped cilantro or parsley (or green onions)

How to Make Black Bean Soup

1. In a medium to large non-stick saucepan, cook the chopped bacon over medium heat for about 4-5 minutes, or until lightly browned, stirring occasionally. Add the onions and sweat them for about 3 to 5 minutes in the bacon fat.
2. Then, add the carrots and celery and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 5 minutes.
3. Add the beans, beef stock, tomatoes and their juice, salt and pepper to taste, pasta, and bay leaf.
4. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; then cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for about 10 to 12 minutes (or until pasta is cooked).
5. Remove the bay leaf and adjust the salt and pepper if necessary. Serve hot, sprinkled with chopped cilantro/parsley (if desired), and serve with bread. Enjoy!

Instant Pot

1. To make it in the Instant Pot, press the saute function, and let the pot heat for about 2 minutes. Then, follow the steps 1, 2, and 3 for the stovetop method above. Then, press cancel!
2. Lock the lid, turn the valve to sealing, and set the time to 5 minutes to cook the soup on high pressure, or use the soup settings and adjust the time to 5 minutes.
3. When the instant pot beeps, let the pressure release naturally for 5 minutes, and then manually release the remaining pressure. Remove the lid and the bay leaf. Adjust the seasonings and stir the cilantro. Enjoy!

Slow Cooker

1. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat and follow steps 1 and 2 for the stovetop method above. Transfer the bacon and vegetables to the slow cooker pot.
2. Add the beans, beef stock, tomatoes (and their juice), salt, pepper to taste, and bay leaf. Secure the lid and cook on LOW for 6 hours or on HIGH for 3 hours. About 30 minutes before the cooking time comes to an end, stir in the pasta, cover, and let it cook on HIGH for 20-25 minutes, or until the pasta is al dente.
3. Remove the bay leaf, adjust the seasonings, stir in the cilantro, and enjoy!

What to serve with

There are several options to serve this black bean soup with such as a hearty bread or a light green salad. Here are a few:

• Sourdough bread
• No yeast bread
• Air fryer garlic bread
• A simple green salad

NOTE: You may serve it with some grated parmesan cheese on top of the soup. However, this dish, unlike other black bean soups, doesn't call for sour cream, Greek yogurt, pico de gallo, tortilla chips, pickled red onions, or lime wedges as toppings.  

Variations

• Vegetarian or vegan: Omit bacon and add 2 Tablespoons of olive oil to the recipe in order to sauté vegetables. In addition, use vegetable broth instead. If desired, other vegetables can be added to this soup such as ⅓ cup of chopped bell pepper, potatoes, pumpkin, or butternut squash.
• Spicy: To make a spicy black bean soup, add some red pepper flakes or ground cayenne pepper to your soup. 
• Pasta: You may use any type of short pasta you want and adjust the soup cooking time to it. Some options are macaroni, pasta shell, and fusilli. 
• Meat: You may replace bacon with any ground meat, or ground sausage. 
• Vegetables: Use any type of veggie you can saute or you have at home. For a thicker broth, use some that can thicken the soup such as pumpkin and potatoes. 
• Beans: If you are not a fan of black beans, or have another type in your pantry, you can use them to make this soup instead. 

FAQ's

 How to Store

• FRIDGE: Store our black bean soup in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. You may have to add just enough broth to the soup before reheating. The pasta tends to absorb most of the soup broth during storage time.   
• FREEZER: You can store it for about 1 month. 
• THAWING: Defrost the soup in the fridge overnight. 
• REHEATING: Reheat, covered, in a microwave-safe bowl until hot. Or, heat it in a pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally. 

Other Black Bean Recipes

• Vegetarian feijoada
• Instant Pot black beans
• How to make black beans
• Black bean salad
• Black beans and rice
• Black bean pasta recipe

Other Soup recipes

• Gluten-free chicken noodle soup
• Ravioli soup
• Chicken tortellini soup
• Thai noodle soup
• Creamy Cajun chicken pasta soup

PIN AND ENJOY!

 

This post was first published on October 19, 2015.