This vegan white bean soup recipe can be made with any white bean - flageolet beans, navy beans, cannellini beans (white kidney beans), or Great Northern beans. The beans are simmered with tomatoes, sage and thyme for a hearty, flavorful meal.
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Jump to:
- 🥣 Simplify Life with Soups
- 🫘 Bean Soups
- 🤷♀️ What are Flageolet Beans?
- ❤️ Why you'll love this white bean soup recipe
- 🧅 Main Ingredients + Notes
- 🔪 Recommended Equipment
- 🎯 Why This Recipe Works
- ⏰ Tips to Simplify and Save Time
- 👩🍳 Preparation Tips
- 💡Ideas for Possible Variations
- 🧊 What's the best way to store this soup?
- 🍽 Side Dish Ideas
- 📇 Similar Recipe You Might Like
- Instant Pot White Bean Soup Recipe with Tomatoes and Sage
🥣 Simplify Life with Soups
My life-long challenge is how to simplify my life. I stuff it full of activities and plans, like a starving person at an all-you-can-eat-cafeteria, heaping multiple dishes on her tray.
Join a book club? Count me in. Work out four times a week with an exercise buddy? Sure. Cantonese classes, write a food column, and fly to Russia to meet Putin? Absolutely.
I am woman. Hear me roar. Although I might pass on the whole meeting Putin thing.
One thing I've done to simplify life is to make more soups. They're easy, filling, a great opportunity for vegetables, grains and legumes, and can be made ahead without a lot of fuss.
🫘 Bean Soups
Bean soups are meal-worthy. They're hearty enough to fill you up, and thanks to the fiber, they keep you feeling filled longer than simple broth soups. And they offer a ton of variety.
Many bean soups focus just on just one bean. For example, lentil soups are popular, and I've made lots of chickpea soups and stews like this Charred Eggplant and Chickpea Stew from an Ottolenghi cookbook that I treasure. Chili is a form of soup, and they often have black beans or kidney beans in them.
And some bean soups feature a LOT of different beans.
White bean soups are the most flexible bean soups, IMO, as white beans go with just about any vegetable and seasoning. This gives white beans soups great range from Cauliflower and White Bean Soup and my Award-Winning Vegetable Soup with Beans (first place prize in a national contest run by Whole Foods) to this White Bean and Kale Soup.
Growing up on Campbell's Soups, my favorite was always their Bean with Bacon Soup, and I've tried to duplicate it many times.
This Tuscan Bean Soup comes kind of close to it. Frankly, I love any Tuscan bean soup, but it didn't remind me of childhood favorite. After more experimenting, this White Bean Soup with Flageolet Beans and Tomatoes is just about perfect.
There's no bacon, of course, in my version. 🌱
🤷♀️ What are Flageolet Beans?
When I have them on hand, I make this soup with dried flageolet (pronounced fla-zho-LAY) beans. They are light green in color, but turn tan when cooked, and are very popular in French cuisine. Their flavor is mild, and they cook up creamy without being mushy, making them the perfect white bean (IMO).
They're wonderful in soups like this one, and also my bean of choice for a simple bean dish drizzled with olive oil and dusting of rosemary.
As a note: they're more expensive than other white beans, but foodies consider them the caviar of beans, and worth every penny. I'm in that camp.
❤️ Why you'll love this white bean soup recipe
- There's only 10 minutes of prep!
- A hearty soup, this soup is perfect for both lunch and dinner.
- Make it ahead and keep in the refrigerator or freeze.
- Besides olive oil, salt and pepper, you only need 6 ingredients to make this soup.
- You can make it on the stove top or Instant Pot (or other electric pressure cooker).
🧅 Main Ingredients + Notes
The secret to faster and easier meals often lies in the ingredients. For example, store-bought items and ingredients you make ahead and store in the refrigerator (or freezer) can turn a 60-minute recipe into a 30-minutes meal or less.
For the all of the ingredients, measurements and directions for this white bean soup recipe, go to the Recipe Card at the bottom of this post.
- Dried white beans - Flageolet beans, Navy beans, Great Northern beans or Cannellini beans.
- Yellow onion
- Dried herbs - I use sage and thyme, but rosemary is another great herb for this soup.
- Vegetable broth - or use water plus Better Than Bouillon Roasted Vegetable Paste
- Plum tomatoes - use canned whole, peeled San Marzano tomatoes (shown in the above photo). They have the best flavor!
- Balsamic vinegar
- Plant-based Parmesan-style cheese (optional garnish)
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links to products and foods I use in my kitchen. This means that at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. To view my entire storefront of recommended kitchen tools and equipment, check out my shop on Amazon.
🔪 Recommended Equipment
Having the right equipment for recipes makes prepping soooo much easier. If you want more fuss-free prepping and cooking, check out my updated list of favorite kitchen tools and equipment.
🎯 Why This Recipe Works
- The Instant Pot is a great way to cook dried beans whether presoaked or not. It's fast, and the moist environment promotes a creamy texture to the beans.
- If you use dried flageolet beans, their natural creaminess produces a perfect texture when the soup is partially pureed.
- Balsamic vinegar adds a touch of umami that's perfect because of the tomatoes. Tomatoes with balsamic vinegar is always a huge win, such as in these roasted balsamic tomatoes.
- Canned San Marzano plum tomatoes are already peeled. If you use fresh tomatoes, you would either have some peel in the soup, or need to blanch and then peel them.
⏰ Tips to Simplify and Save Time
- If cooking beans from dried, presoak the beans using a quick-soak method to shorten the cook time.
👩🍳 Preparation Tips
- If your dried sage is in large pieces, grind them down using a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.
💡Ideas for Possible Variations
- Use canned white beans, such as navy beans, cannellini beans and Great Northern beans, and follow the directions in the below Recipe Card with the following adjustments.
- You will need 2 cans of beans.
- Use a Dutch oven, or other large, heavy bottomed pot suitable for making soup. Warm the olive oil in the large pot over medium heat and add the onion. Sauté for until softened, about 5 minutes.
- Simmer for 10 - 15 minutes on low heat to mingle the flavors before using the stick blender.
- If you like a little heat to your soups, add ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes to the pot with the sage and thyme.
- For using fresh herbs in place of dried herbs, finely chop the sage and triple the amount of herbs.
🧊 What's the best way to store this soup?
- Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 4 - 5 days.
- Freeze in a freezer safe container for up to 1 month.
🍽 Side Dish Ideas
- Freshly baked bread is always a hit. If you're interested in making a yeasted bread, these Parmesan and Garlic Rolls are irresistible, as is this Aglio e Olio Pizza Bread.
- If you want a vegetable side dish, carrots simmered in butter or roasted broccoli goes great with this soup.
- A simple green salad is another great partner to this soup.
📇 Similar Recipe You Might Like
This cheesy white bean tomato bake has some of the same ingredients, and is a fabulous, easy weeknight dinner.
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Instant Pot White Bean Soup Recipe with Tomatoes and Sage
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup dried white beans (flageolet or navy beans) (see the Variations section in the post for using canned beans)
- 4 teaspoons kosher salt divided
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- ⅔ cup yellow onion diced
- 1 teaspoon dried sage leaves crushed
- ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
- 3 cups vegetable broth (or 3 cups water and 1 tablespoon Better Than Bouillon Roasted Vegetable Paste)
- 6 canned plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped San Marzano plum tomatoes are the BEST
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
- grated plant-based Parmesan-style cheese optional garnish
- minced parsley optional garnish
Instructions
- Note: If making this soup with dried beans, you can prosoak them first to save time in making this soup. If you do this, presoak the beans in a brine solution of enough water to cover the beans by 2 inches of water and 1 tablespoon of kosher salt. Bring the beans and the brine to a simmer, and simmer for 10 minutes. Allow to cool for 1 hour. Drain and rinse.OR the beans can be soaked overnight in the same brine solution.This step can be done up to 3 or 4 days ahead.
- Turn your Instant Pot to SAUTE, and select the LOW temperature. Add the olive oil and diced onion. Sauté until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the dried sage and thyme, and sauté for another minute, until fragrant. Turn off the pressure cooker.
- Pro tip: If the dried sage and / or thyme is in large dried pieces, grind them down a little with a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.
- Stir in the beans, and toss to coat. Add the broth, the remaining 1 teaspoon of kosher salt, plum tomatoes and their juices and black pepper.NOTE: Use 4 cups broth if using beans not presoaked.
- Place the lid on your Instant Pot, or other electric pressure cooker, and lock. Cook on HIGH for 10 minutes, plus a 15 minute NATURAL RELEASE for PRESOAKED BEANS, or cook on HIGH for 25 minutes, plus a 15 minute NATURAL RELEASE for beans NOT PRESOAKED.
- Using an immersion blender (stick blender), whirl the soup several times until the consistency of the soup is to your preference.
- Stir in the balsamic vinegar to taste. Start with 1 teaspoon. I prefer it with 2 teaspoons. This adds a depth of flavor that makes a big difference to the overall taste of the soup.
- Serve garnished with Parmesan cheese and minced parsley. I use Whole Foods 365 brand of plant-based Parmesan style cheese.
Michael
Great Idea of a variation on Ham bean or 15 bean soup (without the meat).
But like so many other recipes, in this one, one is asked to break the one cardinal sin of making soft beans by adding salt too early. Unless you want a harder bean, DO NOT ADD SALT until the very end!! This includes salt in the broth as well as in the tomatoes. White pepper and celery are great sub in's.
Susan Pridmore
I used to think that too, but then I read some articles on salting beans while they soak and while they cook and started experimenting. As a result, I not only add salt while my dried beans cook but I also brine them first as a pre-soak. This results in a much more tender and flavorful bean. Here's an article on Serious Eats on the chemistry of this: https://www.seriouseats.com/salt-beans-cooking-soaking-water-good-or-bad and another by Cook's Illustrated: https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/how_tos/5803-salty-soak-for-beans (although CI one is behind a paywall if you don't subscribe). If you have have hard beans that won't soften, there are likely other reasons for this, covered in this post: https://thewimpyvegetarian.com/foolproof-cooked-chickpeas-plus-tips/ Go to the section called "Why Won't My Beans Soften?" I hope that helps!