I love soup. It’s one of my favorite meals, honestly. It doesn’t matter if it’s winter or summer, I would eat soup every day. And lucky for me, Pete loves my vegan kale and bean soup recipe.
This soup is accidentally vegan. We aren’t vegan, mostly because I love cheese. And cheese always makes everything better.
But honestly, this kale and bean soup doesn’t even need cheese. There’s so much flavor from the beans and vegetables that you don’t even need cheese.
Although if you don’t care about this being vegan, a sprinkle of grated Parmesan cheese would be a good addition to this bean and kale soup recipe.
This Vegan Kale And Bean Soup is one of our favorite soup recipes, but it’s not the only one we have on Drugstore Divas.
Be sure to check out our full list of 10+ Super Soup Recipes for more inspiration.
Vegan Kale And Bean Soup Recipe
If you’ve never had soup with kale in it before, you’re in for a treat. Kale holds up well in soup and doesn’t completely wilt away, like spinach does.
Vegan Kale And Bean Soup Ingredients:
- 1 bunch kale
- 2 carrots
- 1 medium onion
- 2 celery stalks
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 cups vegan vegetable broth
- 2 15 oz. cans cannellini beans
- 1 15 oz. can black beans
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
How To Make Vegan Kale And Bean Soup:
Steam the kale.
The easiest way to steam kale: Rip the leaves from the stalks into one-inch pieces. Yes, rip. Cutting with a knife takes too long. Fill a large pot with about an inch of water. Cover and bring the water to a boil.
Put a steamer basket in the pot and put in the kale. Heat over medium heat for five minutes. Remove the steamer basket.
While the kale is steaming, peel and chop your carrots and onion. Chop your celery.
Heat olive oil in a large stock pot. Add the chopped vegetables. Sauté about seven minutes.
Chop the garlic and add it, and half of the salt, to the pot. Cook about a minute.
Add the kale and cook about one minute.
Add in three cups of vegan vegetable broth. Boil, then cook about five minutes.
Drain and rinse a can of cannellini beans. Add the washed beans and one cup vegetable broth to a blender. Blend until smooth.
Drain and rinse the other two cans of beans.
Add the beans, plus the mixture from the blender, to the pot. Cook about five minutes. Add the rest of the salt, add the pepper, and stir.
Serve warm.
Tips For Making Kale And Bean Soup
If you’re planning on making this kale and bean soup, here are a few tips.
Don’t skip the blender
I know, it seems like a hassle to take out the blender to blend a can of beans. But don’t skip that step. The blended beans add a thickness to the soup. If you don’t do that, your soup will be too thin to really eat as a meal.
If you have to want to thicken the soup another way, you can mix together a tablespoon of flour and a couple tablespoons of soup. Stir until the mixture is combined, then pour it back into the soup and cook until the starch in the flour works its magic and thickens the soup.
Personally, I hate making a rue or a slurry to thicken this bean and kale soup, so I just go with the beans.
Preparing kale for soup
I love kale. I eat it raw from our garden daily. When you’re making this soup, you definitely want to steam the kale before adding it. Don’t skip that step. That will soften the kale a little and make it easier to eat when it’s in the soup.
Boiling kale in soup won’t really soften it, and the texture may take away from the soup itself, so that’s why you want to sauté it beforehand.
Also, when you’re preparing kale for kale and bean soup, throw away the stems. Some people will tell you they’re okay to steam and add to a soup. They’re edible, yes, but they’re also really hard. Even after they’re cooked. So in this soup where everything is pretty soft overall, biting into the stem of the kale will really take away from enjoying this. You do what you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Vegan Kale And Bean Soup: Frequently Asked Questions
If you’re not worried about making this soup vegan, you can use chicken broth in place of vegetable broth. It will add another layer of flavor.
If you do so, and you’re worried about Weight Watchers (see more on that below), double check the points on the chicken broth before adding it.
If you don’t have cannellini and black beans on hand to make this kale and bean soup, you can substitute different beans in a pinch.
Cannellini beans are a white bean (and they’re also known as white kidney beans). If you don’t have them on hand, you can use another white bean like a great northern bean or navy beans. They will slightly change the taste of the soup, but not a lot.
If you don’t have black beans, you should run to the store to get them. There aren’t really any black beans that are similar enough to keep the flavor of the soup.
If you don’t mind changing the flavor, red kidney beans would work as far as texture, but the taste is really mild compared to black beans. Red kidney beans would taste good in this soup though.
A lot of readers come to our site for Weight Watchers recipe, so I thought it would be a good idea to break down this kale and bean soup and figure out if it’s Weight Watchers friendly.
This wasn’t intentionally a Weight Watchers soup, but it actually is one.
The simple answer is yes, this Kale and Bean soup is Weight Watchers friendly. The vegetables, spices and beans are zero point foods on Weight Watchers, so that’s great. To the best of my knowledge, vegetable broth is also zero points. You may want to double check, just in case.
So that leaves the oil.
One tablespoon of olive oil is 4 Smart Points or Freestyle Points. If you can sauté all your vegetables in a tablespoon of oil, you’re spreading that 1 point out over four bowls, making this soup just 1 Smart Point or Freestyle point per bowl. That definitely is Weight Watchers friendly.
If you can do without the sautéing, and just sweat the vegetables, you might lose a little flavor, but you’ll turn this into a zero point Weight Watchers soup. So that’s worth it.
More Vegan Recipes:
If you’re eating vegan, either for Veganuary or just in general, we have a few other vegan recipes you might want to try.
- Vegan Chickpea “Tuna” Salad
- Chickpea And Spinach Vegan Burger
- Vegan Pasta Salad
- Vegan Penne Alla Vodka
- Lentil And Cauliflower Vegan Tacos
Vegan Kale And Bean Soup
This Kale & Bean Soup is healthy, accidentally vegan, and zero WW points. It's made from kale, cannellini and black beans, and veggies.
Ingredients
- 1 bunch kale
- 2 carrots
- 1 medium onion
- 2 celery stalks
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 cups vegan vegetable broth
- 2 15 oz. cans cannellini beans
- 1 15 oz. can black beans
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Steam the kale.
- Peel and chop your carrots and onion. Chop your celery.
- Heat olive oil in a pot. Add the chopped vegetables. Saute about seven minutes.
- Chop the garlic and add it, and half of the salt, to the pot. Cook about a minute.
- Add the kale and cook about one minute.
- Add in three cups of vegan vegetable broth. Boil, then cook about five minutes.
- Drain and rinse a can of cannellini beans. Add the washed beans and one cup vegetable broth to a blender. Blend until smooth.
- Drain and rinse the other two cans of beans. Add the beans, plus the mixture from the blender, to the pot. Cook about five minutes. Add the rest of the salt, add the pepper, and stir.
Nutrition Information
Yield
5Serving Size
1Amount Per Serving Calories 365Total Fat 2gSaturated Fat 0gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 1gCholesterol 0mgSodium 1116mgCarbohydrates 66gFiber 19gSugar 4gProtein 24g
Have you tried this Vegan Kale And Bean Soup recipe? Let us know in the comments.