Accidental Black Bean Soup, Easy vegan black bean soup from scratch

Hello again!  I call this soup accidental black bean soup because it is the result of my first attempt to cook dried black beans and  I was not intending to make soup.  I was actually trying to cook dried black beans for something else.  I looked at directions on how to cook a bean and added the required amount of liquid and beans.  Then I thought I'm going to make these really good and add some things for flavor.  So I added a cube of vegetable broth to my water as well as 1/2 a red onion, 2 canned chipotle peppers with sauce, lime and  salt. Possibly there were more vegetables involved.  Any way, I thought the beans would cook and the majority of the liquid would be absorbed and I would end up with really good beans.  What happened instead was very little of the liquid was absorbed but instead became thick and really good broth.  So I looked at the how to cook a bean recipe again and read it all the way to the end where it said "drain access liquid".  Any way it was too good as soup so I decided not to drain them but, eat them like that instead.  Since then I have come up with quite a few bean soups.  This soup takes some time because I make it with dried beans which take 1 to 1 and 1/2 hours to cook. But the time you actually spend preparing things is not long at all.  You could also probably make it with canned beans I haven't actually tried it that way. I would just cook the vegetables and broth maybe about 15 minutes before adding the beans. I like the texture of dried beans better myself.  Dried beans should be soaked over night, drained and rinsed before cooking.  The recipe for my most recent Accidental Black Bean soup is as follows...

-1 cup dried black beans (soak over night and drain before using)

-4 cups vegetable broth

-1 15 oz can of fire roasted tomatoes, diced or crushed

-1 dried ancho chili pepper

-1 jalapeno, minced

-1 yellow onion, diced fine

-1 green pepper, diced

-Juice of 1 lime

-1 carrot peeled and diced very small

-1 potato peeled and cubed

-2 cloves of garlic smashed

-2 celery stalks

-Avocado

-Cilantro

-Green onion

-salt and pepper to taste



1. Add vegetable broth to beans and dried ancho chili pepper to beans and bring to boil.

2. Then add all vegetables, garlic, salt and pepper.

3. Reduce to simmer, cover but leave top slightly propped open with spoon.  I use my wooden spoon.  So that there is a gap of about 1 1/2 inches between lid and pot.

4.  Simmer about 1 hour then add tomatoes and lime juice.  Bring to boil and reduce to simmer again.  Soup is done when beans are tender. 

5. Adjust seasonings.

6. For my presentation I diced a quarter of an avocado and set it in the center and sprinkled the whole thing with lightly shredded cilantro and green onion.

* A not about left over utilization.  I added the left over salsa from Monday's corn chowder to this soup.  Also the left over salsa was good over rice with a little vegan cheese.  You can get pretty creative with this soup using what ever leftover vegetables you have lying around. Thank you for visiting!