Bean & Bacon Soup

Friday 26 January 2018





One thing we like to eat a lot of in the winter is soup.  I am not a huge fan of tinned soup.  In all truth I just don't think many of them taste very good, with the exception of a good quality tomato soup.  


I quite like that, but the rest of them do nothing for me.  I prefer homemade soups most of the time.








This Bean & Bacon Soup is one of our favourites.  I always have what I need in the store cupboard to make it and it goes together very easily.  


I always have an assortment of tinned beans in the larder.  This soup takes haricot beans, or great northern beans as I believe they are called in North America.







Carrots, onions, celery . . .  I also always have them in my larder  . . .  chicken stock (same thing) and tomato passatta (tomato sauce) . . .  those things are also always in my larder.









Streaky smoked bacon is also used.  I didn't have any today so I used bacon medallions, which are like Canadian bacon and they worked fine. 


In fact they are quite lean and so I had to use some cooking spray to cook my vegetables which made it a tiny bit healthier I guess, or at any rate it reduced the fat content somewhat. 







Simple to make, hearty and delicious.  I don't know what else a person could ask for than this!







*Bean & Bacon Soup*
Serves 4
Hearty and filling and filled with lots of veggies and smoky bacon.  Perfect for a cold winter's day. 

1/2 pound smoked bacon diced
1 large brown onion, peeled and finely diced
1 large carrot, peeled and finely diced
2 stalks celery, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
960ml chicken stock (4 cups)
3 (400g tins) haricot beans, drained and rinsed (3 - 15oz tins, great Northern Beans)
salt and black pepper to taste
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp mixed herbs
240ml tomato passatta (1 cup tomato sauce)
finely chopped parsley to garnish (optional) 






Cook the bacon in a soup pot or dutch oven until crisp.  Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon to some paper kitchen towelling to drain.  Discard all but 2 TBS of the bacon fat.  Add the chopped onion, carrot and celery to the pan.  Cook, stirring frequently, over medium heat until they are beginning to soften.  


Add the garlic and cook for a further minute. Stir in the chicken broth and drained beans.  Add the bay leaf and mixed herbs. Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Bring to the boil,then reduce to a slow simmer and simmer over low heat for about 45 minutes. 


 Remove the bayleaf and discard. Remove half of the soup to a blender and puree.  Return it to the soup pot along with the tomato passatta (sauce) and 3/4 of the bacon. Simmer for a further 15 minutes.  Taste and adjust seasoning as required.  Ladle into heated bowls and garnish the top of each serving with some of the remaining bacon and a bit of parsley if desired.







I enjoyed mine with some crisp crackers I've been hoarding (coz I love soup and crackers) and my husband enjoyed his with a soft roll. We were both very happy.  Hot soup on a cold day. Now that's comfort.  Bon Appetit! 




8 comments

  1. Looks great Marie! I feel the same way about soup as you do and don't like any canned soups, just tomato occasionally.

    My house smells heavenly right now. We made, and ate your buttermilk banana bread tonight. We intended to have it tomorrow for breakfast but the poor thing would have had to be twice it's size to outlast my husband, kids and my dad (okay, me too). We loved it! The cooking time was exactly right. We pulled it out of the oven, paced around for ten minutes until we could take it out of the pan and then decided we should take a little taste of it. We had super fancy room temp. butter sitting right there on the counter so how could we resist? We at it all while it was still hot, covered in butter. It was absolutely irresistible, we couldn't help it. Best banana bread I've had. Thank you, we'll be making it many times. We put the blueberries in it like I mentioned I wanted to try, worked perfectly. ;-)

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    1. I am so pleased that the banana bread was enjoyed so much Jeannine! Oh, didn't i it smell just heavenly when it was baking? Glad to know that blueberries work well in it! xo

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  2. Looks and sounds delish..no cans here either..Campbells' soup Toronto is moving to the Us .. I gather sales have not soared through the years..too easy to make a delish soup w/out opening a can:)

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    1. That’s a big step for Campbell’s. I wonder how many jobs will be lost! I think we need to try to make as muchas we can of what we eat from scratch! I think a lot of the health probs of today are due to eating overly processed food! I love homemade soup a lot! Xo

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  3. I much prefer homemade soups to other. That bacon would really set it off!

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  4. Marie, what is a brown onion? This looks delicious, making it soon!

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    1. It is an onion with a brown skin, a cooking onion! In the UK they always called them brown onions! xo

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