It's winter here in the Northern Hemisphere, but in my particular region - Southern Ontario, instead of being snowed in, we're being gloomed in. Say what you want about snow, but at least it's bright white. The current colour palette outside of my office window is bilge pump grey.
Either way, it's soup season. Soup is kind of my thing. This black bean soup is made with canned black beans, cumin, coriander, vegetable or chicken broth and oranges. It can be made vegan, vegetarian or normal person.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. omg. I wish I could have seen your face after that line.
O.K., so black bean soup isn't the most beautiful of soups, but it's comforting, filling and absolutely delicious. If you want to go the vegetarian or vegan route use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth throughout the recipe.
Gather your Ingredients
chicken broth ◻︎ black beans ◻︎ onion ◻︎ garlic ◻︎ carrot ◻︎ celery ◻︎ oranges ◻︎ lime ◻︎ cumin ◻︎ coriander ◻︎ pepper ◻︎ olive oil
Steps
TIP - If you're a lazy cook who ends up eating cookies for dinner because it's faster than cooking, here's a tip: PREP YOUR INGREDIENTS IN THE MORNING. By the time dinner rolls around making dinner won't seem so overwhelming.
- Prep your ingredients. Drain the beans, measure out the spices, dice the onion, crush the garlic, chop the celery and carrots then peel and section the oranges.
If you're prepping in the morning, cover everything and put it in the refrigerator until you're ready to take the next cooking steps.
- Sauté onions & garlic in oil until translucent.
- Add spices to pot and toast until aromatic (around 10 seconds) then add carrots and celery. Cook until softened.
- As you cook, deglaze the pan with your 2 cups of reserved chicken broth. This adds flavour and prevents burning any fond.
- Add 3 cups of chicken broth and the drained but NOT rinsed beans. All that saucy stuff on the beans and at the bottom of the can is full of bean flavour.
- Simmer for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes of simmering, add oranges, a squeeze of lime juice and pepper. Simmer another 15 minutes.
- Add contents of pot to a blender and blend until smooth. Add as much of your reserved 2 cups of chicken broth as you'd like to thin the soup.
Garnish with a dollop of sour cream and a squeeze of lime juice. If you have cilantro around chop some of that up and add it to the top too. (you can also mix some lime juice into sour cream to make a lime sour cream to top the soup with)
VEGANS: You know what to do. Use a cashew or tofu based sour cream.
This recipe came together after spending years trying to replicate a soup I used to get at Toronto's The Swan restaurant. It was a velvety, blended black bean soup with Latin flavours and NO tomatoes.
I tried a lot of online soup recipes in my quest but none of them were what I was looking for and some of them were just plain bad.
That's what I get for using random Internet sites (like this one 😆) to get a good recipe. I was looking for good soup and sometimes Internet recipes aren't what you'd call ... good.
When in doubt, I usually go with Serious Eats or Epicurious for recipes.
Serious Eats often looks at the science of cooking and Epicurious - well they have squirrel recipes which means they're nothing if not adventurous.
By the time I finally landed on this as my final recipe I couldn't even remember what the original soup tasted like - but I knew this one was really good.
I didn't steer you wrong with the Antojitos did I? No. No, I did not. So I suggest if you're looking for the best Black Bean Soup recipe, you try this one.
Creamy Black Bean Soup
Classic black bean soup with flavours of black bean, cumin, corriander and a hint of acid from oranges and lime..
Ingredients
- 2 cans black beans (14 oz each)
- 3 cups chicken stock + 2 cups more for thinning ( vegetable stock for vegetarians/vegans )
- 2 tablespoons oil (approximately)
- 1 cup onions, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 large carrot, chopped small
- 1 stalk celery, chopped small
- ½ teaspoon ground coriander (more if you love coriander)
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin (more if you love cumin)
- 2 oranges, peeled, sectioned and seeded (Sumo oranges if you can find them)
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- Squeeze of fresh lime juice
Instructions
- Prep your ingredients. (drain beans, chop carrot, celery, onion and garlic, peel and section oranges removing visible membrane.)
- In a pot, sauté onions and garlic in oil until translucent.
- Add coriander and cumin to the bottom of the pot to toast until aromatic (10 seconds or so). Add carrot & celery then sauteé until tender. (you can add a few tablespoons of broth to speed things up)
- Add beans and broth to contents in pot. Simmer ½ an hour.
- Add orange, pepper and lime juice to the pot (just a squeeze of lime … you can add more later). Simmer 15 minutes.
- Remove pot from heat.
- Pour soup into blender and blend until smooth. Add the reserved broth to the blender until the soup is the consistency you like.
- Serve with a dollop or swirl of sour cream on top and fresh a fresh squeeze of lime juice.
Nutrition Information
Yield 10 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 149Total Fat 4gSaturated Fat 0gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 3gCholesterol 1mgSodium 403mgCarbohydrates 23gFiber 7gSugar 5gProtein 7g
It's good. Even though it is on the Internet. But the difference between the regular Internet and my Internet, is my Internet doesn't lie.
My Internet also doesn't have squirrel recipes.
Wow, that soup looks soooo delicious!
Thanks April. Had some leftovers tonight! ~ karen
I am going to try this.. and btw....I have THE BEST mac&cheese recipe...from the internet.
I will indeed be making this, this week! Sounds amazing and I love any black bean soup! Thank u for the recipe!
God now I really feel like an idiot, I guess I thought refried was a type of bean, or never really thought about it. Thanks for my learning moment of the day!
Well, to be specific - refried beans are pinto beans and black beans are, well, black beans.
As far as nutrition goes, beans are very healthy for you and black beans one of the best.
While I did get the following from the lie'ing internet, I've researched it before outside of the internet: Beans are loaded with healthy nutrients like folate, magnesium, alpha-linolenic acid, calcium, potassium and vitamin B6. They're rich in protein (one cup of beans provides as much as 16 grams of protein) and are an ideal source of both soluble and insoluble fiber.
And, yes, beans are loaded with carbs, but they're the complex, good kind that help provide energy to your muscles and brain.
Shauna - LOL. Wow. Someone has OCD. Beans are healthy ... but it's not like they're gross and weird like most "health foods". LOL. AND ... I happen to only eat re-fried black beans! I don't like re-fried pinto beans. Blech. They're harder to find but wayyyyyyy better! ~ karen
I have never had black bean anything, is this something anyone would like, anyone being a person without a six pack? I am starting to think my parents really let me down in the bean consumption category. I'm afraid my bean experience consisted of "Ranch Style" beans and baked beans swimming in bacon and brown sugar. Is this because I live in Texas? Or because my dad routinely blamed the dog for his toots? I'm thinking I need to try lentils too, are those beans? I feel so dumb and inadequate. Atleast my parents did not fail me completely, I have never had squirrel or any other roadkill.
Jessy - Black beans are popular in Mexican food. Have you ever had "refried beans". If you've had those (and like them) you'd like black bean soup. They're definitely not health nut food, although they are good for you. Eh ... give it a shot. The most you're going to lose is the cost of 2 cans of beans! :) ~ karen
I've always wondered about Beano - if it really works. This might be a good tester soup for Beano;)
I think it works for some people, but not all. My guy has tried it and says it doesn't do much for him. But it's worth a shot!
I'm with you: if there's tomato in a soup, it's tomato soup! I can't wait to try this non-tomato soup--thanks!
Update: I made this soup last night, and it was amazing. I'm psyched to have the leftovers for lunch today!
Sarah! Glad you liked it. Soup is weird. It's like salad dressing. Whenever I make it, it always tastes a *little* bit different. Always good tho! ~ karen
I had thunderstorms all monrning long here in Florida, so I couldn't turn on the computer until well after lunchtime. What did I happen to make for lunch??
Tampa Cuban Black bean soup. What a neat thing to see another great recipe for black bean soup.
I have the fan on trying to cool off.. soup this time of year is pretty warming. Enjoy
Amy in Florida
Dear Amy. You're a jerk. love Karen. (snowing here)
Karen, what size are the cans of black beans?
Hi Ramona! 540ml / 19 ounces. ~ karen!
Lie, you don't do. But you did put two "the" in the second line! Sorry for being picky, but I thought you would prefer a heads up from a friend, rather than have the Grammar Police bust down your door.
A good black bean soup is a gastronomic delight, but a gastrointestinal disaster! :D
Thanks for the recipe...now I'm looking forward to you sharing the macaroni and cheese recipe that you came up with.
Ah-ha, A blender! I usually like the the flavor of my soups and sauces, but the consistency and texture has been what's lacking. I'll have to give this tip a shot. Thanks!
Matthew - Sometimes you can get away with an immersion blender, but a *real* blender will always give you a smoother texture. ~ karen
When do we get to donate again? This recipe is worth at least a donation! Thank you!!
Sara - Hee. The donate button went up on Friday under the post "The post has the word Boobie in it". You can donate but I was asking people to "Pstt ... pass it on". To tell people about The Art of Doing Stuff, to email posts, Twitter it, Facebook it and StumbleUpon it. :) ~ karen
Great. It is only breakfast and now all I can think of is black bean soup. And tooting because my kids love to hear tooting! Thanks for the great dinner and family entertainment idea.....
Sounds good! Now, I'd think we'd all toot less if the beans were rinsed, wouldn't we? Why do you say not to do that? Just wondering...
Anne - I don't rinse the beans because I find a lot of flavour is in the gooey, guck around the beans. I drain the majority of it away, but don't rinse. I'm not sure, but I don't think rinsing would have any effect on tooting. It's the actual bean that makes you have the raucous toots. :) ~ karen!
.....and write up a list of people who probably shouldnt be drinking the toot soup at your dinner party ;)
God, it looks delicious. And that's as close as I'll ever get to it, because we cannot even utter the WORD "bean" in our house without upsetting my husband's entire gastrointestinal system. So everyone else, eat an extra spoonful and toot one extra toot for me. ~sigh~
Thank you! This just went on the menu for the week! :)
SO glad you posted this recipe and photo -- I've been craving this soup ever since you mentioned it on Facebook. Can't wait to try a black bean soup with oranges (gastrointestinal challenges notwithstanding).
"Squirrel Toot"? OMG what a TOOT you are1 LOL