How to Make White Bean and Bacon Soup: It’s Healthy, Flavorful and Super Easy
This main course soup is hearty, healthy, and super delicious! My husband enjoyed it so much I made it twice in one week. And now, I pretty much make this every week! Cooking for one or two people, no problem, the leftover soup freezes great. Each bowl has 225 calories, 2 grams of fat. Amazingly, each serving has 12 grams of fiber!
Helpful Tips About this Recipe
Makes 6 main-course servings. Each 1½ cups.
Helpful Tips About this Recipe:
Food Facts
Cannellini, Great Northern, and Navy are three popular types of white beans. In most supermarkets, you’ll find cans that say white beans, Cannellini, or Northern. I used cans that said white beans.
Shopping Tips
This is one of my favorite brands of bacon. It’s called Applegate Farms Natural Sunday Bacon. It’s low in fat and calories, uncured, and contains no nitrites! Many supermarkets carry this brand. I bought it at Vons/Safeway and Whole Foods. Here’s the link to their website:http://www.applegate.com/products/natural-sunday-bacon Before finding this healthier bacon, I had combed the supermarket shelves looking for one of the leanest regular bacon choices and Oscar Meyer Center Cut Bacon is my favorite, compared to most regular bacon. It’s much lower in fat and calories, 3 slices contain 70 calories and 4.5 grams of fat. Once cooked on paper towels, most of the fat soaks into the paper, not in the bacon, so the fat is further cut down. In my Skinny Facts, I subtracted out the fat that’s left on the paper towels!
Cooking Tips-Directions to cook on stovetop
1. To a blender, add 1 can of beans and 1 cup of water. Blend until smooth. In a large nonstick pan, add bacon and cook until crisp. Set aside on paper towels. Blot. Add onions, carrots, and celery to the pan and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in tomato paste. Next, add pureed beans, beans, broth, Italian seasonings, red pepper flakes, and black pepper.
2. Bring to a boil, cover, and cook on low heat until beans and vegetables are soft about 25 minutes. Place 2½ cups of soup in blender and puree to thicken, add back to soup and mix well.
3. To serve: ladle 1½ cups into each bowl and top with a little crumbled bacon. Top with chives, if desired.
WW Freestyle SmartPoints 1-Blue
WW SmartPoints 5-Green
Food Facts
Cannellini, Great Northern, and Navy are three popular types of white beans. In most supermarkets, you’ll find cans that say white beans, Cannellini, or Northern. I used cans that said white beans.
Shopping Tips
This is one of my favorite brands of bacon. It’s called Applegate Farms Natural Sunday Bacon. It’s low in fat and calories, uncured, and contains no nitrites! Many supermarkets carry this brand. I bought it at Vons/Safeway and Whole Foods. Here’s the link to their website:http://www.applegate.com/products/natural-sunday-bacon Before finding this healthier bacon, I had combed the supermarket shelves looking for one of the leanest regular bacon choices and Oscar Meyer Center Cut Bacon is my favorite, compared to most regular bacon. It’s much lower in fat and calories, 3 slices contain 70 calories and 4.5 grams of fat. Once cooked on paper towels, most of the fat soaks into the paper, not in the bacon, so the fat is further cut down. In my Skinny Facts, I subtracted out the fat that’s left on the paper towels!
Cooking Tips-Directions to cook on stovetop
1. To a blender, add 1 can of beans and 1 cup of water. Blend until smooth. In a large nonstick pan, add bacon and cook until crisp. Set aside on paper towels. Blot. Add onions, carrots, and celery to the pan and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in tomato paste. Next, add pureed beans, beans, broth, Italian seasonings, red pepper flakes, and black pepper.
2. Bring to a boil, cover, and cook on low heat until beans and vegetables are soft about 25 minutes. Place 2½ cups of soup in blender and puree to thicken, add back to soup and mix well.
3. To serve: ladle 1½ cups into each bowl and top with a little crumbled bacon. Top with chives, if desired.
WW Freestyle SmartPoints 1-Blue
WW SmartPoints 5-Green
| SKINNY FACTS: for 1 main course serving (1½ cups) 225 calories, 2g fat, 1g sat fat, 3mg chol, 16g prot, 40g carbs, 12g fiber, 978mg sod, 5g sugar |
| FACTS: for FreestyleSmartPoints 44 calories, 1g sat. fat, 1g sugar, 5g protein |
How to Make White Bean and Bacon Soup: It's Healthy, Flavorful and Super Easy
Ingredients
- 3 (15 oz) cans white beans, rinsed and drained
- 6 slices bacon, chopped, see shopping tips
- 1½ cups onions, chopped
- ¾ cup carrots, chopped
- ½ cup celery, chopped
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth (I used a 32 oz carton of Swanson’s)
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasonings or ½ teaspoon each oregano and basil
- ⅛ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- Black pepper to taste
- Chives or scallions, chopped for garnish, optional
Instructions
- For instant pot: Add 1 can of beans and 1 cup of water to a blender. Blend on high until smooth. Next, set the Sauté button then cook bacon until crisp. Stir often. Set aside on paper towels and blot. Add onions, carrots, and celery to pot and sauté until soft, about 5 minutes. Mix in tomato paste then add pureed beans, beans, broth, Italian seasonings, red pepper flakes, and black pepper. Cook on high pressure 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, turn off and let the pressure release.
- Place 2½ cups of soup in blender and puree to thicken, then add back to the soup.
- To serve: Ladle 1½ cups into each bowl and top with a little crumbled bacon. Top with chives, if desired.
- For Crock-pot: Add 1 can of beans and 1 cup of water to a blender. Blend on high until smooth. Sauté bacon in a nonstick pan until crisp. Set aside on paper towels. Blot.
- To the same pan, keep bacon fat. Add onions, carrots, and celery to the pan and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Transfer vegetables to crock-pot. Stir in tomato paste. Next, mix in pureed beans, canned beans, broth, Italian seasonings, red pepper flakes, and black pepper. Cover and cook on Low Heat 7-8 hours. or High Heat for 3-4 hours (depending on your crock-pot) Once cooked, place 2½ cups of soup in blender and puree to thicken, then add back to soup.
- To serve: Ladle 1½ cups into each bowl and top with a little crumbled bacon. Top with chives, if desired.
Nutrition
Serving: 1.5cupsCalories: 225kcalCarbohydrates: 40gProtein: 16gFat: 2gSaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 3mgSodium: 978mgFiber: 12gSugar: 5gBlue Smart Points: 1Green Smart Points: 5Plus Points: 5
Tried this recipe?Let me know how it was!
Gosh Belinda, I can’t imagine why your soup was super thin. Did you add 1 can of beans and 1 cup of water to a blender and blend on high until smooth? That makes the soup nice and thick.
This soup is my husband’s favorite and I make it almost every week. And it’s been extremely popular on Skinny Kitchen. I’m so sorry it didn’t work for you!
My best,
Nancy
I followed the directions exactly making no substitutions and it was awful. It was a super thin soup and lacked in flavor. My family and I couldn’t finish it. Not sure what happened as it was thick at all
Thanks for sharing Jackie! I’m so happy you enjoyed this soup.
My best,
Nancy
Love soup for lunch. Helps me not overeat!! This was great except I used only 1 can beans and puréed half of it.
To thicken a little more I used 1/2 tsp Xanthan gum my new find at Walmart baking aisle. Great for thickening without adding more calories. Next time I’m going to cook my own beans instead of using canned. Very good recipe
Lynn, many thanks for sharing my recipe in your group. I always appreciate it!
And thanks for joining me on Skinny Kitchen. I’m so happy to hear you are loving my recipe!
My very best,
Nancy
Hi Nancy. I made the soup tonight. It is so delicious! I always have success with your recipes. I had to cook my beans in the instant pot first because I did not have canned beans. It worked great! I posted a photo on the Instant Pot Community group on Facebook with a link to your site. Thank you for another delicious recipe!
Janet, the beans are listed as the first ingredient. You use 3 cans of white beans.
Enjoy!
My best,
Nancy
I must have missed it somewhere…. but how many cans of beans do you use?
Yes Wendy. I have included the bacon grease in my nutrition facts.
I hope you give this fabulous soup a try!
My best,
Nancy
Did you account for using the bacon grease to cook the vegetables?
My pleasure Ann. I’m so glad you loved this soup!
All the best,
Nancy
This is fantastic! You are a blessing for those of us looking for healthy and tasty food.:)
Paige thank you so much for sharing your feedback. It’s very helpful for others. I’m so glad you ended up loving this soup!
Wishing you all the best,
Nancy
I made this and used “quick release” at the end of the 20, and it was perfect. I misread the directions and used an immersion blender to blend ALL of the soup vs 2.5 cups, and it was still delicious – everyone in my family had seconds.
Re the points values for WW…I found it confusing. But I blame WW’s ever-changing nomenclature for that.
You do not drain the bacon fat. You use it to saute the vegetables in. It adds so much flavor to this soup, Jennifer.
Enjoy!
My best,
Nancy