Tuscan Tomato Navy Bean Soup (No Added Fat)

My daughter requested tomato soup and I found a nice creamy Tuscan tomato white bean soup recipe, made creamy by using beans. I didn't follow the recipe, but used the idea of blending beans into a tomato soup.

It takes navy beans 25-30m to cook unsoaked and 20-25 soaked, with just enough water to cover. Here is what I did.


Ingredients

• 1 cup dry navy beans
• Enough water to just cover beans
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup onion
• 4 cups water
• Vegan bouillon cube
• 12T tomato paste (I used all of a 7 ounce bottle of tomato paste)
• 1/4 t dill weed
• 4t basil (I used frozen basil cubes)
• 1/2 t (or to taste) salt
• Medium tomato cut into 1/2" cubes (about 1 1/4 cups)

Process

1. I rinsed the beans then put them into my Instant Pot pressure cooker along with just enough water to cover them, and cooked for 30m.
2. While the beans were cooking, I added all of the remaining ingredients, except the tomato, to my Vitamix blender.
3. After the cooking was done, I waited a few minutes and gently released pressure, then added the cooked beans to the blender.
4. I blended on low, ramping up to medium for maybe half a minute till ingredients were homogenized, then blended on high till the soup was steaming hot (about 3 minutes).
5. I added the fresh tomato and pulse blended briefly, making sure there were chunks of tomato left, then served.

Results

Dinner was good. I thought that the soup was a bit tangy, but it was just right with crumbled crackers. My wife really enjoyed the soup; my daughter liked it but wished that it had less garlic.

Ideas for the future

I love this idea of blending beans into a soup for creaminess. I've made other creamy soups, such as carrot, but have used cashew, which adds fat and expense. Tofu is another alternative, but my wife has problems digesting tofu.

I'd like to try similar soups in the future. I think that I could improve this one with half as much garlic and maybe more tomato. If we had plum tomatoes, I'd remove the seeds and use them. More - maybe even double the amount - of tomato paste would benefit the soup. I'm so glad to have experimented with a bean soup where the bean is not even the star of the soup, but a thickener that brings great nutrition to the dish.