Huge White Bean Soup
Prep
15m
Cook
40m
Total
55m
Bigly says
Folks. White bean soup. HUGE white bean soup. The biggest, most enormous, most magnificent white bean soup ever ladled into a bowl by human hands. I've had bean soups all over the world — the Italians have ribollita, the French have cassoulet, the Greeks have fasolada, every country has a bean soup and they all THINK theirs is the best, and they are all wrong, they are all delusional, I love them but they are wrong, this one beats all of them, it's a slaughter, hands down.
The Romans had a white bean soup. Look it up. They had a version. The Vikings had a version too, different name, same energy, beans and broth and whatever fat they could find. Bean soup is older than the wheel, some historians say. Older than France. Older than Italy. And the secret has not changed in two thousand years, and I'm telling you for free — no popup, no 'allow notifications,' no cookie banner with 18 toggles for advertising partners you've never heard of. The secret is two things. One: an aromatic base. Onion, carrot, celery, garlic, rosemary, slow and patient, no rushing. Two: a Parmesan rind in the pot. THE RIND. Nobody talks about the rind. The rind is the most underrated ingredient in Western civilization. It melts into the broth, releases all that aged umami salty business, and turns your soup from 'fine' to TREMENDOUS. Game over.
And a swirl of really good olive oil at the end. Not the cheap stuff. The good stuff. The green peppery stuff in the dark bottle that costs $18 and feels like a crime to use but isn't. People come up to me, they say, 'Bigly, why does my soup taste flat,' and I say to them, 'because you used the bad olive oil, the yellow stuff from the gas station shelf, what are you doing with your life.' They thank me. They go buy the good stuff. Their lives improve. It is what it is.
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp, plus more for finishingolive oil
- 1 largeyellow onion, diced
- 1 mediumcarrot, finely diced
- 1celery stalk, finely diced
- 6garlic cloves, minced(yes six, this is not the time for restraint)
- 1 tbspfresh rosemary, finely chopped
- 1/2 tspred pepper flakes
- 2 tbsptomato paste
- 3 (15 oz) canscanned cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- 5 cupslow-sodium chicken or vegetable stock
- 1 piece, about 3 inchesParmesan rind(non-negotiable, find one)
- 2bay leaves
- 1.5 tspkosher salt
- 1/2 tspblack pepper
- 4 cupslacinato kale, stems removed, leaves chopped
- 1 tbspfresh lemon juice
- 1 loafcrusty bread (for serving)
- as neededgood finishing olive oil(the green peppery one, do not skimp)
Steps
- 1
Heat the olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, and celery with a pinch of salt. Cook 8 minutes until softened and translucent.
- 2
Add the garlic, rosemary, and red pepper flakes. Cook 1 minute until fragrant.
- 3
Stir in the tomato paste and toast it 60 seconds, until it darkens.
- 4
Add 2 cans of the cannellini beans, the stock, Parmesan rind, bay leaves, salt, and pepper. Bring to a simmer.
- 5
Simmer uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, to let the flavors marry and the broth reduce slightly.
- 6
Remove the Parmesan rind and bay leaves. Use an immersion blender to puree about half the soup directly in the pot — you want a creamy base with whole beans still floating around. (Or scoop out 2 cups, blend in a blender, and stir back in.)
- 7
Stir in the third can of beans and the chopped kale. Simmer 5 more minutes, until the kale is tender but still bright green.
- 8
Off heat, stir in the lemon juice. Taste and adjust salt.
- 9
Ladle into bowls. Drizzle each serving generously with the good finishing olive oil and crack fresh black pepper over the top. Serve with crusty bread.
One more thing
That's the soup. Forty minutes, mostly hands-off, and you've got a bowl of pure Tuscan glory that costs about four dollars to make and tastes like something they'd charge you $22 for at a restaurant with a wine list you can't pronounce. Tear off some bread. Dip it in. Get olive oil on your shirt. That's the deal. The shirt is a casualty of war and the war was DELICIOUS. Save me a piece.
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