White Bean and Pasta Soup

I was looking through a vegetarian cookbook and happened upon a white bean soup recipe. It looked a little involved – soaking beans overnight, finding corallini pasta, etc. and I didn’t feel like leaving the house to hit up the grocery store for missing ingredients. I knew I had a can of organic cannellini beans in the pantry and I had recently bought some organic vegetable broth for another recipe – I had various boxes of pasta, so I decided to do my own version. Sort of the same ingredients, but not really.

The Ingredients:
1 Can of Cannellini Beans
32 oz. Vegetable Broth
8 oz. Water
4 oz. Gemelli Pasta
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
2 Garlic Cloves – I used my frozen cubes
4 Tablespoons Flat Leaf Parsley – chopped
Garlic Gold Nuggets – I used 3-4 shakes for 1 bowl
Salt and Ground Pepper to taste

Directions:
Pour veggie broth into a soup pot/dutch oven and place on medium high heat –  let simmer while prepping the beans.

Rinse your beans and then put 1/2 of them into the food processor with a tablespoon of olive oil, process to a smooth purée.

Return the purée to the soup pot and stir well to mix. The bean purée was the perfect thickening agent. Add your second tablespoon of olive oil and 8 ounces of water and stir before adding the pasta.

Add the pasta and remaining beans to the soup, return to a boil, and cook for 10-15 minutes, or until tender. Mine took a full 15 minutes. Once the pasta is fully cooked, add the flat leaf parsley, salt and pepper.

I had been seeing Garlic Gold on a lot of the food blogs that I read, so over the summer I found some at Taylor’s Market in the Curtis Park area of Sacramento, CA. I’ve been in love ever since. Toasted organic garlic sprinkles (nuggets) added the top layer of crunch I was looking for.

This soup easily falls into my “top 5” favorite soups list. The only thing that disappointed me, was the fact that I didn’t make a bigger batch. Next time I will double the recipe for sure. I ended up with 3 medium bowls. One in my belly and 2 in the fridge for lunches this week. Crusty bread and a bowl of this… pure vegetarian soup delight.

Have you ever puréed beans for a soup before? Do you have a favorite bean soup? This was such a simple recipe, it will definitely be in my soup rotation from here on out. Corn chowder is still my favorite, but man o’ man was this good! Is it wrong that I’m already excited for my lunches this week?