Description
A basic bulk soup with 15 bean medley or a homemade bean medley.
Ingredients
Scale
- 4 cups of 15 bean soup mix (or 13, or 12 or whatever you’ve mixed up)
- 6 cups chicken broth or vegetable stock
- 1–2 large yellow onions
- 1 head garlic
- 2 cups chopped celery
- 4–6 large carrots, grated or finely diced
- 2 cans crushed or diced tomatoes
- 1–2 cups diced chicken breast, cooked, or other meat of choice
- Other spices and salt to taste and preference
Instructions
- Pre-soak your bean mix in 8-12 cups of water for 4-6 hours. You can soak overnight if your mix contains large red or white kidney beans.Then, discard the soak water and rinse the beans thoroughly.
- Throw beans into a stock pot and bring to a simmer with enough water to cover the beans. Simmer for 5 minutes, then drain and rinse again.
- In your stock pot, or slow cooker, combine prepared beans with your broth or vegetable stock, the onion, garlic, celery, and carrots. At this point, you can also add bones to your soup if desired. Some people make this soup with ham hocks.
- Stir the soup and let it cook on the stove top (keep at a low simmer), or in your crock pot, until the largest beans are tender. Alternatively, run it in an instant pot on meat stew, it’ll cook a lot faster. I do prefer the slow cooker method myself.
- Once the beans are tender, you can remove the bones and re-add in any meat from them. Then add your tomatoes and any pre-cooked meat you want to add in.
- Add any spices or flavor variations. This bean soup recipe is simple on the spices, you can add your own twist. At minimum, add salt and pepper.
- If the liquid level is too low, or you like a broth-y soup, add more stock or broth at this point as well. Bring back up to a simmer and let it heat through.
- Serve soup hot, with crusty bread and butter if desired.
