Creamy, flavorful, and easy to make, there is nothing quite as comforting as a delicious warming bowl of soup. This healthy Easy Black Bean Soup is real comfort food in a bowl. Simple, oil-free (low-fat), and filled with deliciously creamy black beans and aromatic spices, it is sure to give your taste buds a ride to flavor town. We’ve provided both Instant Pot and Stove Top instructions to make it convenient and easy.

Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, gluten free, no highly processed ingredients.

Hi there, Ameera here!

I love creamy black beans, especially in this wholesome soup. We are always excited to hear from our Readers, and we try our best to try to develop recipes that are inspired by our awesome reader requests.

One of our very kind readers wrote to Mom and I requesting a simple, yet flavorful black bean soup without any heat.

Reader Request

Anne wrote:

“We love, love, love your recipes, they are full of flavor, easy to make, and your creativity is much appreciated.  While we love spices, but we can’t tolerate much heat. We would love a flavorful, but mildly spiced black bean soup. If you can find the time to create one, we would be grateful.”

And that’s exactly what Mom and I did.

Spices

This soup is not your traditional Southwestern black bean soup. If you are looking for a very traditional Mexican style black bean soup, this is not the recipe.

This soup has great flavor without any heat. It does have a Southwestern flavor-type base without being overly spicy. The beauty of this recipe is you can adjust the spices by increasing the spice amounts.

You can also add heat by adding cayenne pepper. We suggest not adding any heat-related spices until the end as the Instant Pot really tends to intensify heat-type spices.

I’ll let Mom tell you more.

Hi!  Robin here!

When Reader Anne wrote to us, I just knew we could come up with something tasty. My apologies to Anne for taking so long to get this done. She had requested this soup about 14 months ago.

We get a lot of reader requests and we have so much going on that we can’t always get to them or the WFPB conversion either 1) doesn’t translate very well or 2) the number of kitchen tests trying to perfect the recipe outweighs placing more time and effort into the recipe, and we need to stop or pause attempting the conversion.

After several kitchen tests, I felt we had created exactly what Anne was looking for!

We would love for you to give this recipe a try!  We just know you are going to love it.

If you try this cozy soup, we would love to know if you enjoy it as much as we do! Please leave us a review! Post a picture on Facebook or Instagram and tag us!  We would love to hear from you.

Products Used:

• Food Processor
• Instant Pot or Ceramic/Enamel Lined Dutch Oven or similarly large stock pot

Easy Black Bean Soup

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• Author: Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures
• Prep Time: 5 Minutes
• Cook Time: 25 Minutes
• Total Time: 35 Minutes (+5 Minutes)
• Yield: 4 Servings 1x
• Category: Soup
• Method: Instant Pot/Stovetop
• Cuisine: Southwestern
• Diet: Vegan

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Description

This low-fat Easy Black Bean Soup (Instant Pot and Stove Top instructions) is real comfort food in a bowl with creamy black beans and aromatic spices.

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

Sauté Ingredients:

• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 1 carrot, chunked
• 2 celery ribs, chunked
• ¼ red bell pepper, chunked
• 2 Tablespoons minced garlic

Base Ingredients:

• 1 Tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 Tablespoon GF flour (or flour of choice) *
• 2 cups vegetable broth *
• 1 cup water (or broth)
• 2 – [ 15.5 oz. cans ] black beans, drained and rinsed 

Spice/Herb Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 2 Tablespoons dried minced onions
• 1 teaspoon Mexican oregano *
• ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika (+/-)
• ½ teaspoon chili powder (+/-) *
• ½ teaspoon cumin (+/-)
• 1 teaspoon sea salt (+/-) *
• Pinch to ¼ teaspoon black pepper (+/-)
• 1 bay leaf

Other Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon lime juice

Optional Toppings:

• Chopped cilantro
• Sliced avocadoes
• Fresh squeeze lime juice

Serving Ideas:

• Steamed rice

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Instructions

Instant Pot Instructions

1. Place the Spice/Herb Ingredients (except the bay leaf) in a small bowl, mix well, set aside.
2. Place all the Sauté Ingredients into a food processor and blend until finely minced.
3. Set the Instant Pot to Sauté (high) mode, then add minced Sauté Ingredients into the Instant Pot, sauté for 7 to 8 minutes just until the water from the minced ingredients lose most of their water, then add the tomato paste, flour and the Spice/Herb Mix and stir constantly to allow the spices to release their fragrance, about 1 minute.
4. Then add all the Base Ingredients and bay leaf, stir well to combine. Press Cancel, then set the Instant Pot to Manual Pressure High for 15 minutes.  When finished, press Cancel and allow to sit for 5 minutes, then do a Quick Release.  Unplug the Instant Pot.
5. Once all the pressure is released, carefully remove the lid, stir well to combine. Add the lime juice, discard the bay leaf.  Then mash about ½ of the beans with a potato masher (or emersion blender) to create a creamy texture.  Taste test the flavors and add any additional seasonings at this time, stir to combine, allow at least 5 minutes for the flavors to marry.   Serve with your favorite toppings or with flatbread.

Stove Top Instructions

1. Place the Spice/Herb Ingredients (except the bay leaf) in a small bowl, mix well, set aside.
2. Place all the Sauté Ingredients into a food processor and blend until finely minced.
3. In a ceramic/enamel lined Dutch oven or similarly large stock pot, add the finely minced Sauté Ingredients, sauté for 7 to 8 minutes until the water from the minced ingredients lose most of their water, then add the tomato paste, flour, and the Spice/Herb Mix and stir constantly to allow the spices to release their fragrance, about 1 minute.
4. Then add all the Base Ingredients and bay leaf, stir well to combine, heat to boiling, then immediately lower to a simmer. Cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid and cook for 30 minutes.
5. Remove the lid, stir well to combine. Add the lime juice, discard the bay leaf. Then mash about ½ of the beans with a potato masher (or emersion blender) to create a creamy texture.  Taste test the flavors and add any additional seasonings, stir to combine, allow at least 5 minutes for the flavors to marry.   Serve with your favorite toppings or with flatbread.

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Notes

*TIPS for Success:

• Ingredient Prep: When using the sauté mode on an Instant Pot, it’s easy to go from a nice sauté to full-blown overdone in a flash.  We recommend having all the ingredients prepped, measured and ready to go to avoid spices/tomato paste, and flour from burning on the bottom of the Instant Pot liner.
• Instant Pot: If using an Instant Pot, make sure you really stir the mixture well after everything has been combined. Because the spices, and flour were sautéed, it is important to use a stiff rubber spatula or wooden spoon to scrape the bottom of the IP liner to ensure that none of the spices and flour got stuck to the bottom while sautéing.  This extra step will prevent the “burn” protection feature from kicking on.
• Liquids: If using an Instant Pot (or stove top), when you remove the lid after the Quick Release, the soup will look very watery.  That is OK, stir the soup really well, then use the potato masher (or emersion blender) to break down about ½ to  2/3 or more of the beans into a creamy thick broth.   The beauty is you can totally control the thickness of the soup by how much you mash them.  We liked having some bean texture for a thick, but not overly thick, soup.  You can also use an emersion blender if you want a thicker soup texture.
• Spices: This soup is not your traditional Southwestern black bean soup. If you are looking for a very traditional Mexican style black bean soup, this is not the recipe.  This soup has great flavor without any heat.  It does have a Southwestern flavor-type base without being overly spicy.  The beauty of this recipe is you can adjust the spices by increasing the spice amounts.  You can also add heat by adding cayenne pepper.  We suggest not adding any heat-related spices until the end as the Instant Pot really tends to intensify heat-type spices.
• Flavors to Marry: Make sure you allow at least 5 minutes for the flavors to marry after mashing the beans.  The flavors continue to develop once the soup slightly cools.
• Fresh Squeeze Lime Juice Topper: A fresh squeeze of lime juice on individual servings adds an additional layer of dimension to this soup.

*Notes Continued: 

*Flour:  We used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All-Purpose Baking Flour Blend.  You can use the flour of your choice.

*Vegetable Stock:   We use Pacific Organic Low Sodium Vegetable Stock. We love this brand because it is Whole Food Plant Based compliant, as it does not contain MSG, has no oil, and does not contain any highly-processed ingredients.

*Mexican Oregano:  If you don’t have Mexican Oregano, you can use regular oregano. Mexican oregano has a brighter flavor.

*Chili Powder:  Chili powder comes in varying levels of heat.  We use Penzeys Regular Chili Powder as it has great flavor without adding heat to the dish.

*Sea Salt:  Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.

*Serving:  4

*Storage:  Refrigerate and use within 5 days, freezes well.

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