Creamy White Bean Soup

This Creamy White Bean Soup is warm and comforting, perfect for cold-weather days. Antioxidant-rich white beans are the star of this soup. While some are kept whole, others are blended into the seasoned broth to create a creamy foundation—no cream required. Parmesan cheese rind adds a rich umami nuttiness while also acting as a thickening agent. This soup is infused with herby undertones and just a hint of lemon to balance it all. Keep reading for our expert tips, including ingredient substitutions.

Tips from the EatingWell Test Kitchen

These are the key tips we learned while developing and testing this recipe in our Test Kitchen to make sure it works, tastes great and is good for you too! 

• We like no-salt-added great northern beans, but you can use any white bean, such as cannellini beans or navy beans.
• Regular Parmesan is made with animal rennet, so if you follow a strict vegetarian diet, leave out the optional rind.
• Blending half of the soup and returning it to the pot at the end of cooking thickens it and adds smoothness without cream. You can use a countertop blender or an immersion blender.
• If you're not following a strict vegetarian diet, you can opt for chicken broth instead of vegetable, add shredded rotisserie chicken or set out a bowl of crumbled bacon as an additional garnish.
  

Nutrition Notes

• White beans are a type of legume and, like all legumes, are loaded with nutrition—antioxidants, fiber, plant protein, vitamins and minerals. The fiber in white beans serves several purposes, including filling you up, keeping things moving through your gut, feeding your beneficial gut bacteria and stabilizing your blood sugar. Eating more legumes like white beans may reduce your risk of heart disease. To reduce the amount of salt in the white beans, use reduced-sodium or no-added salt and rinse them before adding to the pot.
• Vegetable broth doesn't add a lot of nutrition to this soup (although this does depend on the brand you use). As with the white beans, be mindful of the sodium when choosing your vegetable broth. We recommend using unsalted broth because this allows you to control the amount of salt you use and flavor it to your liking.
• Onion adds flavor to this soup, but it also adds more antioxidants, fiber, vitamins and minerals. Onions are anti-inflammatory, and besides making you cry when you cut them, they've been linked to reduced cancer and heart disease risk.
• Celery is such a humble vegetable, but it does have mighty nutritional benefits—like adding gut-loving fiber, antioxidants and vitamin K to this soup. Eating celery on the regular can help calm the inflammation in your body, which lowers your risk of illness.