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Creamy Vegan Black Bean Soup

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This Creamy Vegan Black Bean Soup might just be the perfect vegan dinner recipe—especially for cold winter months! Loaded with beans and veggies, this soup is a complete meal for even your biggest eaters. The familiar flavors of Mexican cuisine are extra comforting, and it’s ready to enjoy in about 30 minutes!

Ingredients

Scale

Garnish with:

  • vegan Cotija cheese
  • homemade tortilla strips
  • diced avocado
  • sliced jalapeno
  • fresh chopped cilantro

Instructions

  1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.
  2. Add onion, carrot, and celery along with a couple pinches of salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally for 8 minutes.
  3. Add garlic, cumin, chili powder, oregano, chipotles in adobo, and a couple pinches of salt and pepper. Cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently.
  4. Add beans, veggie broth, and bay leaves. Bring to a simmer over medium high heat.
  5. Reduce heat to low or medium low and simmer for 10 minutes.
  6. Carefully remove bay leaves
  7. Transfer half of the soup to a high speed blender and blend until smooth and creamy. Add blended soup back into the pot.
  8. Add lime juice and season to taste with salt and pepper.
  9. Garnish with Cotija, tortilla strips, avocado, jalapeno, and chopped cilantro and enjoy!

Notes

Feel free to switch up the beans! You don’t have to use just black beans for this recipe, but if you’re going to use other beans, stick to thin-skinned beans like black beans, pinto beans, red beans, or Great Northern beans (or any other thin-skinned beans). Dark or light kidney beans are not ideal for this soup as they have a thicker skin that doesn’t blend as easily. Just be sure to use the equivalent of four 15 oz. cans of beans and you’ll be good to go!

Don’t over-cook the beans! The beans will need to simmer for about 10 minutes to get that perfect texture, but don’t let them go much longer. Overcooked beans get mushy, which is fine for the ones that get blended, but you don’t want mushy whole beans in your soup! Because black beans have thin skins, they are not the type that you want to let simmer all afternoon.

Consider making this easy black bean soup with dried beans if you’re planning ahead! Dried beans, of course, require a lot more cooking time, but if you’re into working with dried beans, they can really take this soup to the next level. Dried beans have a richer flavor profile and you can adjust the sodium levels yourself. Here’s a great instant pot black bean recipe if you’re up for cooking dried black beans.