White bean & broccoli soup
Posted by kathryn in Legumes and Soups
This is an easy, quick soup recipe that I made on Sunday night. It’s based on this recipe, with a few changes and it’s definitely a soup for garlic lovers.
I wanted to include more vegetable in my soup, hence the addition of broccoli. While the original recipe contained risoni pasta, I had some leftover rice and used that instead. I’ve also reduced the amount of olive oil.
The combination of beans, rice and cheese give this soup a high protein content and makes it a meal in itself. These proportions would serve four people as a meal and the soup also freezes well, if you leave out the cheese.
White bean & broccoli soup
Serves 4
2 tablespoons olive oil
10 cloves of garlic
1 small head of broccoli
2 cups of cooked or canned white beans (I used lima / butter beans)
1 cup cooked rice
Parmesan cheese to serve
To prepare the ingredients: Crush and finely chop the garlic. Cut off the bottom of the broccoli stem and then cut the whole head up into small pieces – no more than 1cm. Don’t worry about removing the florets, just chop the whole lot up.
To cook the soup: Pour the olive oil into a pan, put on a medium-low heat and add the garlic immediately. As the oil heats up, the garlic will start cooking and gently release it’s flavours into the oil. After about a minute, the garlic will start to change colour and brown. At this point, add the broccoli and stir to coat with oil and garlic.
Cook for about 30 seconds and then add the white beans and 1 litre of water. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 3 – 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and blend the soup together (I just used a hand / stick blender) and then add the rice. Return to the hot plate and simmer for 2 more minutes.
To finish the soup: serve with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.
Oh yes, and it’s even better the next day!
Reminder
Q & A Thursday is tomorrow – let me know if you have any questions about food, nutrition and health, either by sending an email or leaving a comment.
18 July, 2007
Comments
Holy crap that sounds fantastic. I’m making this tonight, I’ll let you know how it goes. I like the new site design, very “modern”.
FTL, thanks so much. The soup is fab – I’m going to have to make a big pot of it next time. Did you make it for dinner and if so, how did you find it?
The soup was tasty, although a little bland for my palate. A bit more parmesan next time, I think (in other words, lunch in a couple of hours). I was surprised at how mild the garlic flavour was, considering I’d stuck most of a bulb of garlic in there.
For clarity, I think you should add “bring to the boil” before “simmer gently for 3-4 minutes”.
I think it’s important to avoid leaving too much of the “stem” on the broccoli. I chopped the large end bit off, but there were still a couple of woody bits in the pan that took a while to soften up. Also next time, I’m going to use the real blender instead of the stick one. Chasing half-mushed chunks of broccoli around the opaque goop with the blender was unentertaining. I’m going to let gravity help the blender blades find the chunks next time.
I’m wondering if there’s any way to thicken the soup up a bit, I found it a little on the thin side. Perhaps a bit of cornflour or arrowroot? (just a smidge — I still want a soup, not a solid mass)
Matthew some bread crumbs would help thicken it. With regards to the tough “stem” if you cut the outside off, the inside is lovely and tender.
Mmm, lunch soup with extra parmesan — delicious!
Hey there FTL, I’m surprised you found it bland, we must have very taste buds. But yes, a bit more parmesan would definitely do it.
The trick with the broccoli is to cut it up really small before putting in the pan. Although, I actually don’t mind a few lumpy bits of broccoli in my soup, hence the use of a hand blender. Oh yes, plus I don’t actually have a real blender!
If you want the soup thicker, just add a bit less water, maybe 750ml instead of a litre. I certainly found it thickened up the next day when the rice had absorbed more of the spare water. Adding more beans would also make it thicker.
Good point re the “bring to the boil” bit too . . . I shall change that right now.
Hi,
Do you mean use fresh beans? or beans in a can? And if we use fresh beans do they have to be soaked first, and for how long?
Hi there Jenna. In this recipe I’ve used prepared / cooked beans – so either some you’ve soaked and cooked yourself, or ones from a can. Using canned beans is definitely the easiest way of doing this.
If you want to know about using dried beans, take a look at my post on soaking and cooking legumes.
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