Slow Cooker Tuscan White Bean Soup – A simple, flavorful and hearty soup!
My friend Jessica is a fellow foodie and whenever we see each other, she often tells me about great recipes that she has made for her family! A while ago (last winter actually) she told me about this delicious white bean soup that her family loved – and it was the inspiration behind today’s Slow Cooker Tuscan White Bean Soup!
This Tuscan White Bean Soup couldn’t be any easier to make – it’s literally one of those recipes that you just toss everything into the slow cooker and then press the ‘on’ button. It’s a simple soup – navy beans, garlic and diced carrots, celery and onion – plus a collection of dried herbs including bay leaf, rosemary, thyme and smoked paprika, as well as salt and pepper.
We adapted the original recipe by adding in some prepared pesto at the end which really added a great boost of flavor to this hearty and filling soup!
This soup can be puréed in a blender after it is cooked to give it a completely smooth consistency if you’d like. We preferred a slightly chunky soup – so we only puréed half of the cooked soup and then stirred it back into the rest of the cooked beans and diced vegetables before serving.
Recipe adapted from Budget Bytes.
PrintSlow Cooker Tuscan White Bean Soup
Slow Cooker Tuscan White Bean Soup – A simple, flavorful and hearty soup!
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 8 hours
- Total Time: 8 hours 10 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
- Category: soup
- Method: Stove top
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic (about 4 cloves)
- 1 cup diced onion (about 1 medium)
- 1 1/2 cups sliced carrots (about 1/2 pound)
- 4 stalks celery, sliced
- 1 pound dry navy beans, rinsed and picked over to remove any debris
- 1 bay leaf (left whole)
- 1 teaspoon dried crushed rosemary
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- Freshly ground black pepper (15-20 cranks from a pepper mill)
- 6 cups water
- 1/2 cup prepared pesto (see our recipe here or your favorite jarred version)
- 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
Instructions
- In a large (5-quart+) slow cooker, pour in the olive oil and tip to coat the bottom of the slow cooker insert.
- Add all of the other ingredients – EXCEPT the salt and the pesto – to the slow cooker and stir to combine.
- Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours.
- After 8 hours, remove the lid and stir the soup. Place half of the soup into a blender and process until smooth (leave the other half in the slow cooker). Pour the pureed soup back into the slow cooker with the un-pureed soup and stir to combine.
- Stir in the pesto plus 1 teaspoon salt and stir again to combine. Add additional salt and pepper to taste if desired.
You may also like:
Slow Cooker Tomato and Tortellini Soup
Slow Cooker Pulled Buffalo Chicken
Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala
I’m sorry Martha, but way too much water and adding pesto doesn’t add the right flavours at all. If I might a bold suggestion, 2 cups of water and 1 of white wine. Then add a potato, jar of sundried tomatoes (inc. oil) and chicken stock.
Thanks for your feedback Fergus – we’re so flattered that a true Michelin Star Chef would visit our blog!! I can’t tell if you’ve actually made our recipe or are just commenting with a new recipe suggestion – your soup sounds delicious.
So good!! Added Italian sausage flavored ground turkey. We will be making this again for sure
Great suggestion Tanai!
Very tasty. I actually made this conventionally. I sautéed the onions, carrots and celery in oil and then briefly sautéed with the garlic. I cooked the beans to about 75% done and then threw everything into the pot, though I reduce the water a big since I had already soaked and pre-cooked the beans. I used fresh thyme and rosemary. My wife loved this. It had really good flavor.
Thanks Matt – thank you for sharing the non-slow cooker method!
OK all set. I just added the info to the recipe.
This recipe was not good. I think the ingredient measurements were off
Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback JC – sorry you were disappointed!
Can canned navy beans be substituted?
Sure Emily – The cook time will be significantly less since the canned navy beans are already cooked.
I literally just read last night that dried beans should never be cooked in crockpot. Can you share modification for cooktop?
Hi Elyse – I’ve read that is the case for red kidney beans – but not sure that there is the same issue with the white navy beans in this recipe. You can certainly adapt this to stovetop – just add the pesto and seasonings at the end as you do for the slow cooker version. Without testing the recipe on our end, I’d only be guessing at the cooking time however – so I can’t provide that for you. Hope that helps!
Do the beans need to be soaked over night?
Hi Anne – We did not soak the beans overnight ourselves. But we’ve had some readers make this recipe and complain that their beans didn’t soften. If you live in an area where you have hard water or if you are cooking older beans, you could so soak them overnight with baking soda. Hope that helps!
This recipe has been moved to my “Fav” folder! So tasty and easy! Thank you for posting it!
You’re very welcome Sandi!