Easy Black Bean Soup

By Maria Lichty

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Easy Black Bean Soup-A simple and healthy soup made with canned black beans and everyday ingredients! This flavorful black bean soup is vegan, gluten-free, and vegetarian.

Black Bean Soup

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Black beans are my favorite beans and I especially love them in this Easy Black Bean Soup. It is filled with healthy ingredients and seasoned to perfection. And the best part? This recipe is made with everyday basic ingredients, that I bet you already have on hand.

This soup is perfect for lunch, busy weeknights, or feeding a hungry crowd. Our entire family loves this soup and we all get excited when it’s on the menu! It hits the spot every time.

Canned Black Beans

This Black Bean Soup is EASY because I use canned black beans! You don’t have to go through all the hassle of cooking your own beans to have a delicious homemade soup. Canned black beans are a quick and affordable way to get a really yummy soup on the table in no time!

Easy Black Bean Soup

How to Make Black Bean Soup

This is a really easy soup recipe that comes together in no time at all. Let’s make some soup!

  • In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Start with the veggies that will need the most time: onion, carrot, celery, and red pepper. So many beautiful colors right off the bat!
  • Stir occasionally for about 5 minutes, until everything is tender, and then add in the garlic. Cook for 2 more minutes.
  • Now liquid! Pour in the vegetable broth, then stir in the rinsed and drained black beans, and toss some seasonings in: cumin, oregano, a bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Turn the heat way down and let it simmer for 25 minutes. I told you it was easy!

Tips for Thickening the Soup

You can enjoy the black bean soup as is, but I like to thicken it up a little.

Remove the bay leaf and use an immersion blender to puree a little bit of the soup. This gives it a thicker consistency, but don’t blend it completely smooth! You want to still have whole black beans throughout.

If you don’t have an immersion blender you can transfer some of the soup into your blender, pulse it, and pour it back into the pot with the rest of the soup.

Black Bean Soup Recipe

Toppings

Most of your favorite Mexican food toppings would be delicious on Black Bean Soup! You could put out:

Serving Suggestions

If you are looking for side dishes to go with your big pot of black bean soup, here are a few of our favorites!

How to Store

You can keep leftover black bean soup in a container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Black bean soup also freezes beautifully. Pour room temperature soup into a freezer container or freezer bag and freeze for up to 2 months. Make sure you label and date your soup so you know what it is!

Soup with black beans

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Easy Black Bean Soup

Easy Black Bean Soup-A simple and healthy soup made with canned black beans and ingredients you probably already have in your pantry! This flavorful black bean soup is vegan, gluten-free, and vegetarian.
4.55 from 291 votes

Equipment

Ingredients
  

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 large yellow onion, chopped
  • 1 large carrot, chopped
  • 1 celery rib, chopped
  • 1 red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 60 oz (4 cans) black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 32 oz vegetable broth
  • 1 tablespoon ground cumin
  • ½ teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 bay leaf
  • Kosher salt and black pepper, to taste
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
  • ¼ cup chopped cilantro
  • Garnish options: avocado, cilantro, shredded cheese, plain Greek yogurt or sour cream, sliced green onion

Instructions
 

  • In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and red pepper. Cook until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes.
  • Stir in the black beans, vegetable broth, cumin, oregano, bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Turn the soup to low and let simmer for 25 minutes.
  • Remove the bay leaf. If you want to thicken the soup, use an immersion blender to purée some of the soup for a thicker consistency but don’t blend it completely, just a little to thicken it up. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can carefully transfer 2 to 3 cups of the soup to a blender and blend until smooth. Stir the pureed soup back into the pot.
  • Stir in the cilantro and fresh lime juice. Ladle the soup into bowls and serve warm with desired toppings.

Nutrition

Calories: 428kcal, Carbohydrates: 75g, Protein: 26g, Fat: 4g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Fiber: 26g, Sugar: 3g
Keywords gluten free, vegan, vegetarian

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Maria

I'm Maria and my husband is Josh. We share a love of cooking, baking, and entertaining. We enjoy creating recipes that are simple, fresh, and family friendly. We love sitting around the table with good food, good conversation, and good friends and family! Our kitchen is always open!
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4.55 from 291 votes (227 ratings without comment)

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Comments

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  1. Sounds delicious and fits well into my weight management program Recipe says that there are 6 servings. What is the size of each serving ( 1 cup, 1 1/2 cups etc)? Thank you. I have made many of your recipes and they are all delicious. Thank you.

  2. Thank you so much for including suggestions of what to serve with this soup. I often don’t know what would go well with a meal and I love that you have taken the time to help with that.

  3. 5 stars
    Being of Cuban ancestry, we always had black soup at home. Love this easy tasty and healthy recipe. It looks good as well.

  4. 5 stars
    With COVID-19 making meat scarce in my grocery store, I decided to designate 3-4 days to vegetarian cooking. Plus it would be great for our health. This was my first day and I tried this recipe. WOW this recipe was delicious. Iโ€™ve got a family of 9. And 8 loved it. And that includes 7 children ages 4-20. They each went for seconds! The one exception in the household was the baby because she is 6 months old and doesnโ€™t eat solids yet. Or else Iโ€™m sure it would have been 9 for 9.
    This will be added to regular recipes. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to more meals!

  5. 5 stars
    Great recipe! Had to substitute one can of beans for kidney beans so the color was lighter but it still tasted delicious.

  6. 5 stars
    This soup is so tasty and delicious! It is one of our go-to recipes with sour cream, sliced avocados and lots of chips for dipping. I always make the full recipe and freeze the rest. Doesnโ€™t take long to eat that batch too! Love it!

  7. 5 stars
    Enjoyed by all!! Looking to use up some pantry staples that we had loaded up on for the pandemic ๐Ÿ™‚ and this hit the spot for a Sunday evening.

  8. Excellent recipe! Simple and delicious! No questioning tenderness of the beans!!
    The easy cornbread is phenomenal as well!

  9. 3 stars
    This was pretty good, I liked the thickened consistency when part of the soup was blended. Still didnโ€™t knock it out of the park for me flavor-wise. I felt like a can of diced tomatoes wouldโ€™ve been a nice addition.

  10. 5 stars
    I loved this soup, and thanks for the recipe. I had to use my Instant Pot to cook the beans because we have a big garden and my husband always grows black beans. Anyway, the soup was a success at home and I looking forward to make it again. Thanks again and Happy New Year 2021!!!

  11. 5 stars
    Don’t make the mistake I made. I used dried beans. It had to simmer for about 12 hours! But boy, was it yummy! All the additional veggies gave it a rich flavor.
    It makes a large amount! 6 generous servings.

  12. 5 stars
    Made this tonight and instead of the listed veggies I used salsa. So yummy and flavorful. I’ll be making this again.

  13. 5 stars
    Simple and delicious! I recently started doing the 1/3 blending method for a bunch of my soups now and it totally is a game changer. I will definitely be saving this recipe and making it again. Thanks!

  14. 5 stars
    Five star = quick, easy and delicious. I’ve made this several times and only significant change is using dried cilantro which works out very well and is much handier during WI winters. Thanks for your terrific recipe!

  15. 5 stars
    This soup is delicious! Pretty amazing that something that can be made so quickly can taste so great. Since I’d never made it before I followed the recipe exactly. I had to make myself stop eating the entire amount but it was so good I kept going back for more.

  16. 4 stars
    I substituted one can of refried black beans for whole black beans and didn’t need to blend the soup. Really terrific recipe.

  17. 5 stars
    Great, simple, healthy recipe. I didn’t plan on making black bean soup, I looked at what I had in my cabinets and fridge and decided that I could probably throw something together. I changed a few things due to not having but also experimenting: I used 2 cans of black beans. 1/2 pint of vegetable broth, 1 huge onion, 10 baby carrots chopped, no peppers, and no celery ๐Ÿ™ That said – I subsituded 1 half-baked russet potato peeled into strips to get a little more density and two pieces of fresh bacon for flavoring which I removed at the end. I simultaneously broiled left over strips of the 1 additional peeled potato and 1/2 potato leftover creating like thin crispy french-like-fries to add to the top instead of tortilla chips. WOW… this was so incredible I cannot thank you enough!!! A new must-have in my recipe book!!

  18. We didn’t have the lime nor the bay leaf but it still came out AMAZING! So much better than we expected

  19. Wonderful recipe, surprising has lots of flavor. This will become a new favorite for a quick healthy lunch. Thanks for sharing.

  20. 3 stars
    I made this soup. Personally, I don’t believe there is enough of any spice or addition that will allow for any major taste. Super bland. I wound up adding salsa and tomatoes to give it flavor.

  21. 5 stars
    This was a huge hit!!!! Delicious!!!
    I blended 1.5 cans of the black beans in the blender adding the remaining whole beans into the soup with carrots, onion and celery. The mixture was cooked down for 2 hours on low heat – adding veggie broth to thicken and a bit more cumin than was listed.
    Serve with Yellow Rice and crispy garlic & butter rolls.

  22. 5 stars
    This was a huge hit!!!! Delicious!!!
    I blended 1.5 cans of the black beans in the blender adding the remaining whole beans into the soup with carrots, onion and celery. The mixture was cooked down for 2 hours on low heat – adding veggie broth to thicken and a bit more cumin than was listed.
    Serve with cheddar cheese and sour cream, Yellow Rice and crispy garlic & butter rolls.

  23. Just finished a bowl of this soup, Wonderful! Will make again. Made Cornbread to go with it. Had one little moment of panic. When I used my hand blender on it, I forgot to take Bay Leave out, lol. Just picked out the bits as I chewed them.

  24. 5 stars
    Delicious, quick and easy. I even had all the ingredients on hand. This is a very good soup that my 5 year old granddaughter and everyone else loved. It is simple to make, healthy and rich in flavor. My husband said, โ€œblack bean soup – I donโ€™t think so.โ€ Then he tasted it and was shocked that he actually liked it – a lot. This is a dish to make repeatedly, a new comfort food, needed now more than ever – thank you.

  25. Thank You for sharing this wonderful recipe!
    Itโ€™s a life saver for picky eaters at my house!!!
    Thank You again โค๏ธ

  26. 5 stars
    This is one of my favorite recipes, and I make it all the time now. I love the texture from throwing half the soup in my Vitamix but still leaving some chunky/whole beans. Such great flavor in this soup!

  27. 5 stars
    Souper good!!!
    I have this on rotation during our L.A. winters, (dips into the 40โ€™s brrr!)
    I set out all kinds of toppings and my family has fun customizing.
    This is also really good over a baked potato and cilantro lime rice!!!
    Thanks Maria for keeping this family healthy and well fed!

  28. 5 stars
    Really, really yummy soup. Soup-er easy to make with all of the wonderfully healthy ingredients. You should set up a soup truck. This is aโ€™homeโ€™ run!!

  29. 5 stars
    This was fantastic! Way more interesting and delicious than your average black bean soup and easy to prepare. I only had three cans of black beans but that was no problem. Thank you!

  30. 5 stars
    Really great (and easy recipe)! Highly recommend using the immersion blender to thicken up the soup. You could easily increase the diced carrots and celery as well. Very flavorful. I plan to add this to my winter soup rotation. Thank you for sharing Maria!

  31. Hi. I just made your easy Black Bean soup. Great flavor but I had a question. It was so thin after cooking. I even pureed 3 cups of it like you suggested but after adding back there were hardly any beans. I used 4 cans of beans to total just over 60 oz but it didn’t seem like it was near enough beans?

  32. 4 stars
    I love this recipe but my mother is not a cumin fan.. I’d add less next time but my partner and I love this as is!! Very good recipe!

  33. 5 stars
    I made the Easy Black Bean soup and it was fantastic – the best black bean soup I’ve ever had. Substitutes green pepper for the red pepper and lemon juice for the lime juice since I didn’t have either. Turned out great! Thank you for such great recipes!

  34. This was sooooo freaking delicious. I used to get my black bean soup from Panera Bread and they stopped carrying it. Panera has nothing on this recipe and I am in love again!! I have already shared this recipe with friends.

  35. Hello! I’ve been wanting to try this recipe for a while now, and I finally made the soup last night. It was amazingly delicious! I substituted the vegetable broth for chicken broth and it was so good! I also cooked some brown rice mixed with quinoa on the side and added it to the soup as a final touch. Thank you for this recipe. I now feel confident in making bean soup. ๐Ÿ™‚

  36. 5 stars
    Followed the recipe to a T and I was so happy with it! Don’t think there’s much room for adjustments. I have left overs in the fridge and freezer. Thank you for this easy and thorough recipe. So easy to make and really hit the spot!

  37. 5 stars
    This is super simple, full of flavor, and delicious! No special techniques or hard to find ingredients required. This will go into our monthly winter meal rotation.

  38. Very good soup. I used just a bit more garlic. The fresh cilantro and lime juice is key for this recipe. You can use more than one carrot and celery if you like. It made it just right. Will make again.

  39. This black bean soup looks delicious and am ready to make it. However under the nutritional information the sodium was not included. Most of my family are on sodium restricted diets so not sure what they number would be. Could anyone help me calculate that number per serving? Thank you.

    1. I would love to make this soup. Looks so good but sodium not listed under nutritional values. Can anyone help?

    2. Ok, we too watch our sodium. So I used a low salt (140mg) chicken broth, and three cans of black beans at 130 mg of sodium in each servingโ€ฆcame to 10.5 x 130โ€ฆhowever if you rinse your beans under cool water till clear you can reduce that sodium by 40%. The fourth can I used was a seasoned black bean at 300 mg per serving x another 3.5โ€ฆso the beans and broth were the only sodium I used and diving total sodium by 6 servings it came to a little over 400 mg of saltโ€ฆit would be higher per serving if you then added more salt to the soupโ€ฆ

  40. 5 stars
    I just made this soup for the first time tonight and I’ll definitely be making again. It was hearty and delicious, perfect for a cold night. The only addition we made was Cholula for some spice. This is a keeper for sure!

  41. 5 stars
    Excellent soup. Although I made a couple changes. I used Better Than Bouillon low sodium chicken broth and added a couple tablespoons of tomato paste. The tomato really kicked it up a notch with flavour!

  42. 4 stars
    This a very good recipe for black bean soup. I gave the recipe four stars because the amount of cumin is overbearing, thatโ€™s all you taste. I had to add more broth to be able to reduce the cumin taste. Next time I will only put in a teaspoon.

  43. Excellent recipe!
    I added a 4oz can of chilies, a seeded and diced jalapeno, and a little green pepper.
    If this recipe is bland for you, be sure to salt to your liking, and donโ€™t forget the squeeze of lime to finish with…the lime is the secret.

  44. Made this on a whim this on Sunday and it was so yummy. I blended up the majority of the soup which and topped it with sour cream, cheese, cilantro, green onions, and lime juice and it was everything I wanted from a black bean soup. I think this is my new favorite black bean soup recipe, easy and very good.

  45. 4 stars
    Added a Jalapeno and a touch of cayenne for some heat and garnished with radishes and chives. Served with a cheese and spinach quesedilla. Kind of a south of the border grilled cheese and tomato soup!

  46. I made this with dried beans instead of canned. Came out great. Family loved it. Will definitely make it again. Thanks for sharing.

  47. Easy Saturday diner, going to serve it with corn chips and guacamole. I did add leftover ham and a jalapeรฑo for a little kick.

  48. 5 stars
    This recipe is delicious. I modified it to half recipe but used 3 cans of beans, everything else was half. Pepper jack cheese on top gives it a good kick and makes the soup very creamy. I use blender to make dip out of leftovers. This recipe is top notch!

  49. 4 stars
    I made this recipe without the salt and I have to agree with a couple others who said the cumin was a little much. I also ended up adding a little more stock because the liquid did not cover the beans in my pot. Otherwise, a very good soup!

  50. 5 stars
    Best black bean soup ever! I made 1/2 the 1x recipe and it was enough for four servings. I reduced the oil to 1 tsp, added the corn from one cob, pureed about 1/2 of the second can of beans and added a sprinkle of hot red pepper flakes. I forgot to add the lime juice and didn’t miss it, though I’ll try to remember it next time. Thanks for a great recipe.

  51. 5 stars
    Delicious recipe! I’m not vegan so I started with cunecha sausage and used the grease from that to cook my veggies. Because I used meat, I reserved one can of beans and about half cup of broth and used the immersion blender then stirred it in. Came out amazing! Thanks for sharing.

  52. My tip for thickening this delicious soup, try adding some red lentils. They will break down completely and add soluble fiber. Yummy

  53. 5 stars
    Found this on Pinterest while searching for a black bean soup, looking for a quick soup to make for dinner. Made it exactly as written (except cilantro) and it was delicious!

  54. 5 stars
    Excellent flavor. Well balanced seasonings with the cilantro and lime added last. Good recipe, one that I will keep and use over again.

    My only suggestion would be to check the recipe when the servings are reduced. The quantity of bean cans does not change.

  55. Add diced ham to the mixture (or fried/crumbled bacon) and use bagged beans that havenโ€™t been cooked and canned. Slow cook the entire concoction in a crockPot. That would be my suggestion.