Bean Soup Recipes

A light broth loaded with chunky Great Northern beans and topped with a sprinkling of bacon, this soup was inspired by the caldo gallego (a Spanish white-bean soup) that chef Jose Garces serves.

This cozy white bean soup is perfect for an easy dinner and can be made ahead of time.

The dried beans in this hearty soup must be soaked overnight.

Filled with beans and whole grains, this soup is hearty and healthy.

Cookbook author and TV personality Joanne Weir varies the vegetables in this soothing soup with the seasons. In the spring, for instance, she'll substitute sugar snap or snow peas or fresh edamame for the frozen baby peas listed here. Since a flavorful broth is critical to a soup as simple as this, use a rich stock. If you don't have time to make your own, pick one up from a specialty food store.

This flavorful soup is full of hearty black beans and spicy sausage.

An overnight soak for the beans ensures a creamy texture when cooked with smoky sausage.

Serve this flavorful clam and bean soup with some crusty bread.

For this delicious soup, any fresh shell bean can be used.

By using chicken thighs instead of breasts, F&W's Melissa Rubel gives this hearty, jalapeño-spiked soup ultrarich flavor.

This soup goes back, as Gwyneth Paltrow writes in My Father's Daughter, to a French restaurant called La Serre in Los Angeles where she used to eat with her father. "I've always loved the idea of French onion soup," Gwyneth says, "without actually liking the soup itself." She cooks the onions slowly with fennel and lots of garlic, makes the soup with vegetable stock and sets the filled bowls under the broiler topped with a slice of toasted bread and a generous handful of grated cheese.