VERY RICH BEAN SOUP WITH PASTA

Big variety of vegetable soups with many different ingredients, all depending on the season and what you have in the fridge, can be a delicious starter to lunch or dinner. Very often we make a thicker soup like stew and serve it as a complete one pot meal together with bread and dessert afterwards. This recipe is one of that kind. It is easy to make and delicious to eat!

Thick bean soup-stew with pasta.

Beans are traditionally very popular food.  Very often they are served together with other dishes as a side dish.  Well known variety of bean soups and stews are cooked all around the world.  

In Slovenia we have our own bean soup, which is cooked differently from house to house. Beans are usually cooked in larger quantity and used for a few meals over a few days. They can be larded with pork cracklings and served with sauerkraut or turnips, or in a salad. They are used for cooking jota, barley soup or in this case bean soup.

Bean soup with pasta - recipe:

This is my way of cooking bean soup. 

You can use this recipe as a base for cooking many different vegetables soups like potato soup etc. You can cook it as completely vegetarian dish or with a nice piece of ham or as we also do, with a carniolan sausage. 

There are many different recipes for making bean soup. The important ingredient is only one - “the beans". All the rest is a matter of your cooking approach, inspiration and the vegetables you have in your fridge. After a while you will probably cook it a bit differently every time.

Ingredients:

400 g of pre-cooked beans / you can also use canned beans

100 g of green peas / you can use frozen peas
1 small piece of leek
1 Carniolan sausage or ham or "bonito flakes" / optional  

1 onion

4 cloves of garlic

1 medium carrot

1 small piece of celery root

1 small piece of parsley root

3 tbsp of tomato puree or canned tomatoes

2 tbsp of dry sweet red peppers - grated chilli / optional, with caution

2 bay leaves

1/2 tsp of rosemary

1 tsp of thyme

green parsley for garnish

salt

pepper

water from cooking the beans and or broth

1 tbsp of lard or ghee / you can also use oil

50 g of pasta / depends on how thick you want the soup to be

Main ingredients for bean soup

Cooking method:

Prepare all the ingredients. Chop the onions and put them into the pot together with lard or ghee.

Clean all the roots. You can cut or grate them or put them all together with garlic into a food processor.  These will also help you to thicken the soup in a natural and healthy way.

Start with stir-frying the onions with a pinch of salt.  When onions get nice light brown colour, add grated roots and mix well. After a few minutes add all the spices and herbs.

When the onions get light colour
add grated roots

Add all the spices

Mix well and add bean water and broth.  Bring to boil. Now add green peas and beans after a few minutes. You can make a puree with a part of the beans, the rest should be whole. Cook on low heat for a few minutes. At this point I added bonito flakes instead of precooked ham. Add chopped leek and pasta. Cook until pasta is “al dente". 

Add pasta and cook it "al-dente"

Instead of ham I added "bonito flakes"
to get the flavour 

Turn off the heat and leave aside for a few minutes.You can serve it as it is. If you want you can also serve it with bread. It is a delicious one pot meal. As for dessert I would recommend "strudel" or pancakes with jam or cottage cheese filling.

Bean soup served with homemade bread and blueberries strudel

Enjoy the meal!

For more photos see this LINK!