One-Pot Tuscan White Bean Soup

One pot, mostly store-cupboard, and thickened with its own beans rather than cream. It is the kind of soup that improves overnight and costs very little to make.

The short version

Soften a soffritto properly, cook out the tomato paste, simmer beans with a parmesan rind, then blend a couple of ladles and stir them back in. That last step is what gives the soup body — no cream, no flour, no blender full of soup.

Season it harder than feels right at the end. Beans absorb salt, and an under-seasoned bean soup tastes like nothing at all.

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp olive oil, plus good oil to finish
• 1 onion, 2 carrots and 2 celery sticks, all finely diced
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 tbsp tomato purée (paste)
• 1 tsp chopped rosemary, 1 tsp thyme leaves, a pinch of chilli flakes
• 2 × 400 g tins cannellini beans, drained
• 1.2 litres vegetable or chicken stock
• 1 parmesan rind, optional but worth keeping a stash in the freezer
• 1 bay leaf
• 150 g cavolo nero or kale, stems stripped out, leaves torn
• Salt, black pepper and half a lemon

How to make it

1. Warm the oil in a heavy pot. Add the onion, carrot and celery with a large pinch of salt and cook over medium heat for 10–12 minutes until soft and sweet. You want them collapsing, not browning.
2. Add the garlic, rosemary, thyme and chilli and cook for a minute, then the tomato purée. Cook it for 2 minutes until it darkens and smells roasted rather than raw.
3. Add the beans, stock, parmesan rind and bay leaf. Simmer for 20 minutes.
4. Scoop out two ladlefuls of beans and liquid, blend or mash them smooth, and stir them back into the pot. This is the body of the soup.
5. Add the greens and simmer for 5–8 minutes until tender.
6. Remove the rind and bay. Season generously with salt and pepper and add a squeeze of lemon — it lifts everything. Finish each bowl with a thread of olive oil.

Swaps that work

• Beans: butter beans or borlotti in place of cannellini.
• Greens: spinach (add it for the last minute only) or savoy cabbage.
• Vegan: skip the parmesan rind and stir in a teaspoon of white miso at the end for the same savoury weight.
• Heartier: add 100 g small pasta with the greens, or stir in cubes of stale bread and let them collapse — that is the road to ribollita.

Serving suggestions

Crusty bread is the obvious answer. The better one is a slice of sourdough toasted hard, rubbed with a raw garlic clove and set in the bottom of the bowl before you ladle the soup over it.

Frequently asked questions