Vegan Greek Fasolada Soup

I love these Greek recipes that my friend Erisa has shown me. They’re all so tasty and satisfying and this vegan Greek fasolada soup is no exception. It has fairly simple ingredients, but they work together so well.

The celery, onions and carrots, are beautifully paired with the white beans and tomatoes. If you use dried cannellini beans, and in season produce, this is also a very inexpensive soup to make. Eaten with wholemeal bread it’s a complete protein providing meal straight off the bat.

Many people are too nervous to cook their own beans, but it’s very easy to do once you try it. If you finish off cooking the beans in the soup, then it makes it even more delicious and nourishing. I suggest keeping the bean juice or cooking water, and incorporating it into the soup.

There’s really not much difficulty in making this vegan Greek fasolada soup. It’s mainly just a question of chopping the veggies to the right size. I prefer for them to not be too chunky for this soup, then it’s just a question of time.

Blending some of the soup mixture and returning it to the pan helps to make the soup nice and thick. I’ve also made sure the herbs are at the right level. Many recipes use very small amounts of spices – I say be bold – add more!

Eaten with some nice lightly toasted wholemeal sourdough, or wholemeal multi-seed bread this is a meal in itself.

Greek Fasolada Soup

an easy but tasty soup made with carrots, celery, onion, tomatoes and cannellini beans plus a few herbs and spices.

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Course Soup

Cuisine Greek

Equipment

• 1 Large pan 7 litre
• 1 collander to drain the beans
• 1 stick blender you can use a potato masher, but nothing like as good.

Ingredients

  

• 500 g of dried cannellini beans. that’s 5 cans worth approx.
• 3 medium onions chopped that's 400g approx
• 2 large carrots chopped 250g
• 4 whole celery stalks sliced fairly thinly 250g
• 5 cloves garlic - sliced or crushed 25g approx
• 50 g tomato paste
• 400 g chopped tomatoes 1 can
• 1 tbsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 1 tsp red chili flakes
• 3 whole bay leaves
• 1250 ml liquid - bean juice plus water 1250ml = 1250g
• 3 whole low salt vegetable stock cubes
• 30 g extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 tsp lo-sodium salt

Instructions

 

• These are the dried beans to use - if not add canned at the end.
  
• Soak 500g of cannellini beans the night before you want to make this soup. Use plenty of water.
  
• When they’ve soaked for 12 hours, put on the heat, and bring to a rapid boil for 10 minutes, then simmer for 45 minutes longer.
  
• Strain the beans, but keep the liquid.
  
• Make the liquid up to 1.25litres with extra hot water, and add the 3 stock cubes crumbled well.
  
• Put a large pan on the hob and add 30g of extra virgin olive oil.
• Chop the onion, celery, carrot, garlic (sliced) and put in the pan plus the salt.
  
• Begin to sauté the mixture of onion, celery, carrot, garlic and for 6 minutes, stirring frequently.
  
• Add in the tomato paste and stir well, and continue to cook for a minute or so longer.
  
• Add in the chopped tomatoes, partly cooked beans, made up stock, oregano, rosemary, chili flakes and bay leaves.
  
• Stir well & bring the soup to a low boil then simmer on a low heat for 30-40 minutes, until the carrots are soft. It just wants to be a very gentle simmer so that the beans don’t break up too much. Check the beans too - they should be tender, but not mushy.
  
• Remove 1 1/2 ladlefuls of the beans and veg mixture into a jug and blend with a stick blender.
• Add the pureed soup back into the pan and stir well.
  
• Serve in bowl with garnishings (see note 2).
  

Keyword soup, cannellini beans, comfort food, tomatoes, celery

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