Hearty White Bean Soup – Fasolatha

Traditional Greek soup of white beans, celery and carrots in a tomato sauce sauce broth and flavored with pungent fresh herbs and sweet onion and garlic.

The tomato plant is native to South America, making it’s way up to Mexico and grown there by about 500 BC. It wasn’t until the 16th century that tomatoes first appeared in Europe. Italians were the first to grow the tomato in the 1550s but tomatoes as a main part of food didn’t really occur until the 1800s.

When you stop to think about the history of the tomato compared to the history of Greece dating back thousands of years, the tomato is actually a relatively new addition to Greek cuisine! I find this incredibly interesting because so many of the traditional Greek dishes I love making and eating have a tomato base, like this white bean soup or another dish called Arakas Latheros (peas and carrots in a tomato sauce, recipe found here!).

This white bean soup is a medley of hearty flavors: tomato, celery and carrot paired with pungent parsley and melded with the sweet flavors of onion and garlic sauteed in extra virgin olive oil and a dash of spice. We love this dish any time of year but particularly on a cold or rainy day.

Following my family’s footsteps, I love to cook my beans in a pressure cooker because it reduces the cooking time by more than half. Nowadays, many people are using an Instant Pot but I’ll be honest, I haven’t tried it out yet! If you don’t have a pressure cooker, you can certainly boil the beans but that will take at least an hour and half. With a pressure cooker, our cooking time is down to 30 minutes.

It’s vitally important to soak your beans overnight (or at least 8 hours) to help soften them up and prepare them for cooking. Also, soaking beans helps release lectin, a carbohyrate binding protein, sometimes considered an anti-nutrient because it reduces the body’s ability to absorb nutrients from the beans. Lectin is a defense mechanism used by plants to help them grow by deterring animals from eating them. While lectins can cause some digestive discomfort, they can also be antioxidants and they can also slow down absorption of sugar into the bloodstream; both very positive outcomes of ingestin lectin.

Lectin is most prevalent in RAW plant-foods; no one eats raw beans. High heat cooking such as boiling and water exposure like soaking removes and inactivates most of the lectins that are found. Beans, legumes and whole grains are consumed by some of the historically healthiest regions in the world (Japan, Greece) known as Blue Zones because they are loaded with nutrients, vitamins and minerals that are essential for optimal human health. As Harvard says, “the health benefits of consuming these foods far outweigh the potential harm of lectins in these foods.”

In this recipe, we’re soaking them and we are cooking them at high heat so let’s get busy and make some beans! We hope you enjoy this protein-packed, fiber-filled and delicious dish.

Hearty White Bean Soup – Fasolatha

Traditional Greek soup of white beans, celery and carrots in a tomato sauce sauce broth and flavored with pungent fresh herbs and sweet onion and garlic.

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Prep Time 8 hours hrs 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 50 minutes mins

Course Soup

Cuisine Greek

Servings 8

Equipment

• Pressure Cooker

Ingredients

  

• 1 lb small white beans navy or great northern
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 3-5 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 carrots, peeled and diced
• 3 celery sticks, diced use the leaves as well
• 1/3 cup fresh chopped parsley
• 1 8oz can tomato sauce
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 tbsp dried oregano
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 handfuls baby spinach, chopped optional
• water

Instructions

 

• Soak your beans overnight or at least 8 hours.
• Prepare all of your ingredients by washing, peeling, chopping and dicing the onion, garlic, celery, carrots and spinach.
• Saute your onion and garlic in the olive oil until translucent, about 3 minutes.
• Add your diced celery and carrots and mix until well incorporated. Saute for just a moment to help release their flavors.
• Add the tomato sauce, parsley, salt and pepper, oregano and beans. Give a good mix.
• Add enough water to the pot so that the beans are covered. It's always better to have too much water than not enough. If you run out of water, your beans will burn and stick. I add enough water so that the beans are covered and the water level is about 1/2 inch above the line of the beans.
• Bring to a boil on high heat. When boiling, mix in your chopped spinach.

  For the pressure cooker: when boiling, cover and pressurizer the pressure cooker. Once pressurized, reduce heat to low and let it cook for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, shut off the heat and release the pressure. Once opened, give the soup a good stir and check your water level. If it's too watery, bring it back to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until more liquid has been reduced. This soup has a thicker texture – see the pictures in this blog post.

  For a regular pot on the stove: bring the pot a boil and then reduce your heat to low. Simmer the beans for 60-90 minutes, stirring occassionally to prevent sticking. Keep an eye on your water level. If the water level drops too low before your beans are ready, keep adding a little water and simmering until your beans are done cooking.

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