All Season Three Bean Vegetable Soup

If you’re looking for a soothing and comforting lunch or dinner option, especially on days when you’re feeling rough or under the weather, try this plant-based All Season Three Bean Vegetable Soup. This vegan soup is easy to throw together if you have already cooked or canned beans on hand and is even faster to make with an Instant Pot or other pressure cooker. This soup is deliciously flavorful and can be enjoyed hot or even cold during hot summer days!

Here’s the Backstory

For those who are married, you might chuckle at remembering the delusion many of us face before marriage. We think, “Sure, I know most of all there is to know about [insert name].” After all, we’ve been dating for [x number of months/years] right? Wrong. It’s not till after marriage that you realize just how ‘little’ you actually know of a person, and how much MORE there is to discover. Needless to say, often the first year or two can be the roughest, as you find yourself still in the ‘discovery process’ of getting to know the other person. #marriagetruth

But some of the things you discover can be fun. Like the time my daughter told me matter-of-factly that ‘Daddy’s favorite color is orange’, and I was stunned to realize that we had been married for about 10 years and I didn’t know this key fact. I always thought it was blue!

Another relatively recent discovery was this…that my husband loves soup. I always knew he had a penchant for mushroom soup, but it turns out that he loves soup of any kind. So, I was delighted when I created this soup and found that he enjoyed it immensely. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to share it, so you can enjoy it too – during the cold winter months and beyond.

Looking for a Nourishing Bowl of Comfort?

This All Season Three Bean Vegetable Soup can be enjoyed on its own, paired with a leafy green salad, a sandwich, pasta salad or even just a piece of crusty whole-grain bread slathered with hummus. Alternatively, have this soup with some whole wheat (or gluten-free alternative) pasta added into it to make a satisfying one-dish meal.

Adding chickpeas (garbanzo beans), black-eyed peas and green beans give this soup a protein-rich plant-powered boost. If you don’t have chickpeas or black-eyed peas, just substitute with other cooked or canned beans you may have on hand like kidney beans, Romano beans or white navy beans. You can keep this soup in the fridge for about 5-7 days and also freeze any leftover portions if desired. Try this soup for yourself to see!

All Season Three Bean Vegetable Soup

Serves 8
Recipe by: Anna Tseng | PlantNourished
Prep Time:  15 min
Cook Time: 30 - 40 min
Total Time: 45 - 55 min

Ingredients:

• 4 garlic cloves, sliced
• ½ cup diced onions [65g]
• 2 teaspoons dried basil
• 7 cups unsalted or low sodium vegetable broth, divided [1680mL]
• 1 large tomato, diced [165g]
• 1 ½ cups chopped carrots [200g]
• 2 cups chopped red cabbage [165g] (or use green cabbage)
• 2 medium potatoes, chopped [280 g]
• 28-ounce can unsalted diced tomatoes [796mL]
• 1 ¼ teaspoons salt (see recipe notes)
• ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
• 15-ounce can chickpeas (or 1 ½ cups cooked chickpeas) (see recipe notes)
• 15-ounce can black-eyed peas (or 1 ½ cups cooked) [135g]
• 1 cup fresh or frozen green beans [90g]
  (or 14-ounce can of cut green beans - see recipe notes)

Optional Additions:

• 1 bay leaf
• 2-3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil as a garnish

Instructions:

1. Drain and rinse the canned black-eyed peas (if not using cooked versions), then set them aside.
2. Drain and rinse the canned chickpeas/garbanzo beans well (if not using cooked versions), then set them aside. If the canned chickpeas are already quite soft, use them later in the recipe when the soup has already been cooking for about 15 minutes. If they are pretty firm, you can put them into the soup earlier with the other ingredients.
3. Put 2-4 tablespoons of vegetable broth or water into a large, well-heated pot and then sauté the onion and garlic for 1-2 minutes until soft and translucent.
4. Add in the fresh tomato pieces and dried basil and sauté another 2-3 minutes.
5. Add to the pot the carrots, potato, cabbage, black-eyed peas, the can of diced tomatoes,  the remaining amount of vegetable broth, bay leaf (optional), as well as the salt, pepper and Italian seasoning. If you are using fresh or frozen green beans, you can also add these in at this time. (See recipe notes if you are using canned green beans.)
6. Stir to combine the ingredients well and bring the soup to a boil for a few minutes, then turn down the heat. Let the soup simmer on the stovetop for about 20 - 25 minutes.
7. Taste the soup and check if the carrots and potato pieces are cooked through. If so, you can add the canned or pre-cooked chickpeas and the canned green beans (if not using fresh or frozen versions) at this time into the pot. Let these items cook for another 5 - 15 minutes.
8. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired and remove the bay leaf before serving. Garnish with fresh chopped basil leaves (optional) then serve and enjoy!

Recipe Notes:

This recipe assumes the use of unsalted/low-sodium canned beans and unsalted/low-sodium vegetable broth. If you use regular commercial vegetable broth and regular canned black-eyed peas and chickpeas, then slightly reduce the amount of added salt used in this recipe. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired.

If you are using fresh or frozen green beans, you can add them into the soup mixture earlier on with the other soup ingredients, instead of at the end. Alternatively, you can use a 14-ounce can of low-sodium or unsalted cut green beans. But drain and rinse these well before using, and since the canned cut green beans are usually already quite soft and tender, you can add them into the pot towards the end of the cooking time.

If you are using an Instant Pot, simply set the Instant Pot to ‘sauté’ mode first, and sauté the minced garlic, bay leaf (optional) and diced onion pieces with 2 tablespoons of vegetable broth for about 2-3 minutes, before adding in the fresh diced tomato and dried basil and sauté for another 2-3 minutes.  Then add the remaining ingredients (except the canned chickpeas and canned cut green beans if these are already very soft) and stir to mix well. Next, set the Instant Pot to ‘manual’ and pressure cook for 10 minutes. Then let the pot do a Natural Release for 10 minutes, before doing a quick release and opening the lid. Finally, add in the drained and rinsed canned chickpeas and canned cut green beans, and stir to combine well.

Additional optional step for a thicker soup: After the soup has finished cooking, let the soup cool slightly then take out 2 cups’ worth of the soup. Blend this amount of soup until smooth using a blender or food processor) then add this blended mixture back to the soup and stir well to combine. Serve and enjoy!

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