Magic Bean Soup

With Soup Season upon us (to the delight of my kids), I thought it was time to share some of our favorite soup recipes! Magic Bean Soup is a frequently requested soup in our house. When we have Sunday Supper Soup Socials during Advent (we just make a massive pot of soup every Sunday night through Advent and open our home to anyone and everyone who wants to stop by for dinner), this soup is always requested.

This soup serves 20-24 people. You may want to divide the recipe for a more manageable amount of soup if you’re not feeding a crowd. (I’m always feeding a crowd.) I also make this in the InstaPot because it is by far the easiest way to make anything involving dried beans, but you could adapt it for a regular stock pot on the stove– you’ll just need to cook it for 5-6 hours instead of 40 minutes. You also need at least an 8 quart electric pressure cooker (InstaPot) for this recipe.

Ingredients

• 1/2 stick butter
• 1 onion chopped
• 1/4 cup dried celery (optional)
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 2 quarts dried mixed soup beans
• 5-6 quarts chicken stock
• 1 T salt
• 1 T black pepper

Making Some Magic (Bean Soup)

Turn the InstaPot on brown and toss in the butter, chopped onions, celery, and can of diced tomatoes. Let the butter melt and stir the veggies a bit while it does. Don’t bother to cook the onions down completely.

Add the chicken stock, beans, salt, and pepper. Stir. Turn the InstaPot on for 40 minutes.

When it is done, we serve it with homemade peasant bread. (A recipe for another day.)

Now the Talking

I always hate it when the recipe is all the way at the bottom of a blog post, so to avoid that, I put mine toward the top. Now we can talk about all the particulars with the recipe out of the way.

This is a cook from the heart kind of recipe. If you don’t have dried celery, you can use fresh (the flavor is different, though) or you can skip celery. If you don’t like tomatoes, don’t add them. (They are very minimal in this soup, so you may not even mind them.) I usually use a yellow onion, but if you only have white or red, use what you’ve got. I have added carrots before, as well, though I don’t usually add carrots. If you don’t have butter, use some olive oil and move on. It really isn’t an exact science here. It is soup. Soup is forgiving.

Discussion of Ingredients

I use the 13 bean mix from Azure. Buying the 25 pound bags ensure we have beans so we can have Magic Bean Soup at any time. I do not buy the seasoning mix because I find my way works the way we like it. You can buy mixed beans from the grocery store (you’ll need 2-3 of the normal sized bags). You can also just toss in whatever dried beans you happen to have.

That said, the red lentils and split peas in the 13 bean mix will pretty much disappear in the soup– but they act as a thickening agent. Without them, the soup is going to be less substantial feeling. So, I do think having at least one of those is an important factor. Also, my kids absolutely love having some giant beans in the soup. So, I think the large lima beans or lava beans are necessary to a good Magic Bean Soup. They are part of the magic. I think the dried mixed beans are easiest, but it isn’t the only way.

Bean choice can also affect the cook time. I find 40 minutes in the InstaPot gets all the beans cooked, but not obliterated (except for the red lentils and split peas as we discussed). However, if you’re using smaller beans all around, you could decrease your cook time. If you’re adding a lot of larger beans or you don’t have those lentils and split peas that are going to thicken the soup, you can add more time.

I say 5-6 quarts of chicken stock because technically 6 quarts might fit, but you’ll likely have to short it a little to not go over the “max fill” line on your electric pressure cooker (InstaPot). I add to the max fill line, which will be over 5 quarts but a little under 6. If you have a pressure cooker larger than 8 quarts, this isn’t going to be an issue– add 6 quarts of stock.

Serving Magic Bean Soup

I also love serving this soup with fresh, homemade bread. You don’t have to serve it that way. It can be served alone. You could just buy a loaf of Italian bread or a baguette to serve with it. It is entirely up to you.

I don’t garnish the soup, either. I don’t find this to be a fancy soup and don’t bother with garnish. If I were going to garnish it, chopped parsley would be my choice of garnish.

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