This creamy kale and white bean soup is a play on an Italian staple, escarole and bean soup. It is a velvety smooth and warming soup, perfect for the fall and winter months, with a surprising depth of flavor using only a few ingredients and taking less than 20 minutes.
Escarole and bean soup, or “schadole and beans,” was a staple of my childhood. While we didn’t actually eat it that often, my grandpa did make it every once in a while. But it became a staple of my childhood because my uncle would use it as a threat for my younger cousins. If they weren’t good, he was going to make schadole (our slang term for escarole) and beans for dinner. And these two little kids couldn’t imagine anything worse than that. But while I never had the aversion to escarole and beans that they did, I still wanted to give this traditional soup a bit of an upgrade. Hence, my creamy kale and white bean soup.
A WEEKNIGHT MEAL
One of the reasons why I love making escarole and bean soup so much (and I will eventually post a traditional recipe for it) is because it comes together super quickly with only a handful of ingredients. And this creamy kale and white bean soup is the same way. I made this soup with almost exclusively ingredients I already had on hand. Garlic, beans, stock, some kind of dark leafy green (I use kale, but any green could be substituted), parmesan cheese, and lemons are all pantry staples of mine. And that means this soup is super easy to whip up whenever I get a craving for something warm and comforting.
Not only does it use only a handful of ingredients, but the soup comes together in under 20 minutes. While cooking soups for a long time undoubtedly leads to a richer flavor, this one doesn’t necessarily need it. You could let your soup simmer for hours, and it would definitely be delicious. But by using ingredients that taste best fresh, like lemon and kale, combined with ingredients that have already been imparted with hours worth of flavor, like chicken stock and canned white beans, you can get away with a very quickly simmered soup. It really is the ultimate weeknight meal.
INGREDIENTS WORKING DOUBLE DUTY
Part of the trick to using so few ingredients to make this creamy kale and white bean soup is letting the ingredients do double duty. Whole white beans not only add texture and bite to the soup, but a puree of them with stock adds that velvety texture as well. A fresh lemon’s juice flavors the broth, while its zest adds a zing of citrus to the top. And the whole chunk of parmesan cheese adds the most flavor. Simmer the rind in the broth to fortify it with extra savory flavor, and sprinkle the cheese itself over the soup at the end for an added salty bite. By letting only a few ingredients work twice as hard, you end up with a soup that is creamy, smooth, rich, and perfectly balanced in flavor.
Creamy Kale and White Bean Soup
Ingredients
- 1 15 oz can of white beans
- 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lemon
- 6 cups kale, torn into bite sized pieces
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- parmesan cheese rind
- parmesan cheese for topping
- a pinch of chili flakes
Instructions
- In a medium sauce pot, saute garlic and a pinch of chili flake in olive oil until just fragrant, 2 minutes.
- Add half the can of white beans, with their liquid, the stock and the juice of one lemon to the pot. Add the parmesan cheese rind and simmer covered for 10 minutes over low heat.
- Remove the parmesan cheese rind and set aside. Remove the soup from the heat and blend the mixture with an imersion blender (or in the regular blender or food processor, being sure to cool it slightly first) until it is creamy.
- Return the soup to low heat. Add in the remainder of the beans, the kale, and the parmesan cheese rind. Simmer for another 5 minutes until the beans are heated though and the kale is slightly wilted but still bright green.
- Serve with lemon zest and parmesan cheese over top.
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