With the cooler weather, do you feel yourself craving comfort foods? Foods like creamy soups, mac and cheese or mashed potatoes calling your name?

If so, you’ll love this soup we stumbled upon. It’s creamy tasting thanks to blended potato, but it’s also healthy and light, so it won’t weigh you down!

Vegan Senate Bean Soup
(small batch recipe)vegan, serves 2-3

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups Navy Beans (canned + drained/rinsed)
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp vegan butter
• 1/2 cup onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup parsley, chopped
• 1/3 cup celery, chopped
• 2 tsp vegan liquid smoke (If you don’t have liquid smoke, chipotle powder is a great alternative)
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 2 Tbsp cayenne pepper hot sauce
• 4 garlic cloves or 1 Tbsp garlic powder
• 1 large bay leaf
• 1 medium white potato, baked (skin on)

As needed to thin soup: 1/4-1/3 cup plain soy creamer (You can also use soy milk, or more water)

Directions:

1. In a soup pot, add the drained/rinsed beans, water, bay leaf, salt, parsley, onion, celery, liquid smoke, hot sauce, pepper, garlic and vegan butter. Bring to a boil and simmer while potato bakes (step 2).
2. Bake a skin-on potato. Use oven or microwave – cook until tender.
3. Rough chop your potato and add to a high speed blender. Remove bay leaf from broth pot soup. Add in about 1-2 cups of the soup (mostly broth). Blend on low- medium until potato is pureed/smooth. Your soup will be thick at this point. Add in as much soy creamer or soy milk (or water) as you’d like to thin out the potato portion of the soup. (Remember, you still have your other bean/broth mixture to add so keep that in mind. I added about 1/4 cup soy creamer, a splash of soy milk and 1/2 cup water.)
4. Blend the thick potato mixture with your whole bean broth mixture. If you want completely creamy soup, simply blend the entire portion in the blender with the potato. If you like some whole beans, simply fold the potato mixture in with the whole beans.
5. Simmer on stove until ready to serve.

Nutrition Facts (per serving, based on 3 servings per recipe)

Calories: 264, Fat: 9g, Carbs: 36g, Protein: 9g, Fiber: 9g,

This recipe is adapted from Kathy Patalsky’s awesome recipe and can be found at http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2012/06/senate-bean-soup-vegan-version.html