There are plenty of options for bean soup, and there are a lot of lean recipes among them.
That is, those where products of animal origin are not used.
These options will be interesting to those who refused to eat meat for any reason - ideological or health, as well as for believers during various fasts.
Beans are rich in various trace elements, vitamins, especially group B.
But the special popularity of bean dishes is due to the fact that legumes contain a large amount of protein needed by the body and in this regard they successfully compete with meat. Therefore, lean bean soup is a rather nutritious dish that will remarkably fill in the amino acid deficiency in the absence of animal products.
And to make it tasty and most useful will help the proper preparation and use of various aromatic seasonings.
Lean Bean Soup - General Cooking Principles
Lean bean soup can be prepared from any variety of this product: fresh or frozen green beans, canned beans, but most often they use dry legumes.
Despite the simplicity of cooking beans, it is important to properly prepare the main ingredient. Before cooking, beans are traditionally soaked for several hours - from two to ten. If you leave the soaked legumes for a longer time or in a warm room, they may ferment. For the same reason, water should not be used warm, but always cold. Desirable - boiled. After soaking, be sure to drain the water and rinse the beans to remove unnecessary substances that are released during soaking.
In addition to the main ingredient, for the preparation of lean bean soups are used:
Potatoes
Bow
Carrot
Cabbage
Bell pepper
Fresh, canned, dried mushrooms
Tomatoes and / or Tomato Paste
Garlic
Vegetable oil
Seasonings, spices, fresh or dried herbs
Before cooking, the washed soaked beans are poured in water in the ratio in a triple volume and, bringing to a boil, cook over low heat until partially softened. Then add other ingredients, raw or fried.
It is better to salt the dish after half an hour of boiling bean, since salt makes their skin harder and prevents it from being boiled.
Simple lean bean soup with vegetables
Ingredients
½ cup bean
3 potatoes
1 carrot
1 bell pepper
1 onion
1 large tomato
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
Salt, black pepper, herbs to taste.
Cooking method
Boil soaked beans for half an hour, put diced potatoes.
Fry alternately finely chopped onions, grated or thinly chopped carrots, sweet bell pepper.
At the end, put the tomato, peeled and diced. Put out five minutes and add dressing to the soup.
Salt, boil until potatoes are ready. Season with black pepper and herbs.
Let it brew for about ten minutes and serve.
Tip: This soup can be cooked without potatoes, which will make it easier. In this case, you need to take more beans or less water. In the easiest version, the vegetables are not fried, but added to the boiling soup after the potatoes - first carrots, then onions and peppers, and finally tomatoes. And if you don’t remove the potatoes, but, on the contrary, add one more ingredient - slaw, we get mushroom cabbage soup.
Lean mushroom bean soup
Ingredients
1 cup beans, preferably white
3 potatoes
1 carrot
1 onion
300 gr fresh mushrooms (champignons, chanterelles, butter, honey mushrooms)
Beans, preferably white - 1 cup
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
Salt, herbs to taste.
Cooking method
Boil soaked beans until almost ready, put potatoes, diced, salt.
In butter, passassed chopped onions with finely chopped mushrooms, add carrots, chopped into cubes.
As soon as the soup with potatoes boils, immediately put the fried vegetables and mushrooms there and cook for at least 20 minutes.
Add greens at the end.
Tip: Instead of fresh mushrooms, you can take dried ones. For example, porcini mushrooms or mushrooms. 50 gr dry mushrooms pour water for an hour, then cook, chop, if they were whole. Use the broth as the basis for the soup, namely: boil the beans in a small amount of water and dilute with mushroom broth before adding the remaining ingredients. Suitable for soup and canned mushrooms. They should be treated the same way as with fresh ones, only dressing with vegetables and mushrooms can be added at the very end of soup preparation, since canned ones do not require such a long cooking as fresh.
Greek Bean Lean Fassolade Soup
This dish in Greece and Cyprus love to cook in the summer. It is light due to the lack of meat and has a refreshing sourness. The classic fassolade - lean tomato bean soup with vegetables - is prepared like this.
Ingredients
1 cup beans
2 carrots
1 onion
1 bell pepper
2 tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
Fresh hot peppers to taste
Salt, fresh black pepper, lemon juice, parsley and basil - to taste.
Tip: Classic fassolade is made only from white beans. However, nothing will change except the color scheme of the soup, if you use legumes of a different color.
Cooking method
Rinse soaked beans and put in boiling water. Make a small fire and cook until soft for about an hour.
Add carrots, sliced, sliced sweet pepper, hot - finely chopped. Simmer for 7 minutes with the lid closed. The liquid should cover the vegetables, but it does not need too much.
Fry onions in vegetable oil until soft, not allowing to brown. Put the peeled tomatoes, chopped in a blender or on a grater, warm them and put them in the main dish where the beans are languishing. Salt and pepper as desired.
Stew - beans and vegetables should be completely soft.
Pour into plates, sprinkle with chopped herbs and lightly pour with lemon juice.
Lean Bean Soup with Garlic
The aroma of garlic will be a wonderful additional nuance of a hearty bean soup.
Ingredients
½ cup beans or 1 can of canned without tomato
1 large or 2 medium onions
3-4 cloves of garlic
1 carrot
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
Salt to taste
Parsley greens.
Cooking method
In a soup pan, heat the oil, toss the onion chopped into cubes, and then finely chopped garlic. You do not need to pass it through a garlic press or rub on a grater, just cut it enough.
Let the onions and garlic fry slightly, avoiding darkening.
Put boiled until almost complete readiness or canned beans in the same pan with the liquid, put the carrots cut into strips, add salt. Add hot water so that the liquid is two fingers higher than vegetables.
Stew until fully cooked all the components, salted to taste.
When serving, add fresh parsley to the plates.
Tip: On some days of fasting, believers are forbidden to consume even vegetable oil. You can cook such a soup without using it. Then the onions and garlic are not fried, but simply added to the beans a little later than carrots. All together stewed for another five minutes. Such bean lean soup will help to get enough, replenish the supply of strength and at the same time will not allow to violate church rules. It is suitable for those who are on a diet.
Lean Bean Soup with Walnuts
This original version of lean bean soup has a richer flavor by adding nuts.
Ingredients
1 cup beans
1 onion
50 grams of walnuts
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 tablespoon red sweet pepper powder
Bay leaf, dried greens of dill and parsley
Cooking method
Boil soaked beans until tender.
Fry the chopped onion in butter until golden brown.
At the end of the frying, add sweet pepper powder - paprika.
Put the dressing for the beans along with bay leaf and nuts.
For greater aroma and taste, pre-fry the walnuts a little without oil or hold in the oven, then chop with a knife or a blender.
Boil the soup for several minutes, remove the bay leaf, put the greens on and off. Let it brew.
Tip: Boiled beans can be crushed or crushed with a blender, returned to the broth, cooked according to the same recipe. In this case, you get soup puree. Adding carrots and sweet peppers to the roast allows you to get another recipe for lean bean soup.
Lean Bean Soup: Tricks and Secrets
Using a few simple tips will help to ease the preparation of the dish and improve its taste and appearance.
1. If the beans were not soaked in advance, you can cook them quickly for an hour. To do this, boil the washed beans, drain the water, pour cold and, bringing to a boil, cook over low heat, periodically adding a little ice water. This type of beans turns out to be boiling and is great for mashed soup.
2. For soup, you can choose beans of different colors - white, red, colored. You can use different varieties, but it is desirable that the beans have the same size. The only thing is to avoid violet beans, it is good in salad, and the soup can give an unpleasant bluish tint.
3. A good seasoning for bean soup will be bay leaves, as well as ground pepper.
4. Basil, coriander, caraway seeds, nutmeg, paprika and hot red pepper are also considered seasoning for such a soup.
5. Cooking lean bean soup can be done either traditionally, on a stove in a saucepan, or in a slow cooker. The original version is in the oven in pots, where the beans and other ingredients boiled until almost ready are laid.
6. When serving in bean soup, season well with sour cream.
7. For this dish, if it was cooked without tomato, you can serve the products with sourness - pickled peppers, olives or olives. Crackers, various cakes, garlic bread rolls also go well with bean soup.
