Vegan Seven Bean Soup

Mar 3, 2012 by claudia

I still have a bit of an aversion to “meat substitutes” in the form of tempeh, tofu, textured soy protein, etc.  But I do like the nuances of different types of beans.  In this soup, there are seven: lentils, kidney beans, northern beans, split pea, yellow split pea, pinto beans, and cannellini beans.  I love the color lent by the split peas.  The beauty of soup like this is that you can add whatever vegetables you like.  In this case, an onion, a couple of garlic cloves, half a head of green cabbage, 4-5 carrots, and 4-5 stalks of celery.  For this particular soup, I used 4 cups of Imagine’s “no-chicken” stock as well as pearled barley.  On a cold weekend afternoon, nothing could be more satisfying or easy.  To make it even easier, I mix the diced onion and garlic with the beans, barley and stock in a crockpot on low for 5-6 hours and then add the other veggies with maybe half an hour to go so they aren’t too mushy.  You won’t even miss the bacon or pork in this dish – promise!