White Bean and Kale Soup

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This hearty white bean and kale soup is chock full of veggies and filling. It’s the kind of soup that warms you up, packed with flavor, and it’s low calories too.

It’s also full of plant-based protein and inexpensive. Like all my bean recipes!

This is the soup season, although this delicious recipe is one of my favorites all year round. It’s loaded with vegetables and beans with a rich, flavorsome broth, and I seriously could eat it every day!

Plus, each serving comes with less than 200 calories!

Start with onion, carrots and celery sautéed in olive oil, and take your time to build this important flavor base. Then add aromatic garlic, oregano, paprika and the rest of the ingredients.

Cook and let the flavors mingle together, you‘ll be rewarded with a pot of steaming white bean kale soup that is warm, filling, and has a bold flavor that stands up on its own.

It’s absolutely delicious with croutons, crusty bread, easy focaccia or pesto bread for dipping. We usually end up topping it with some parsley pesto (always ready in my freezer!) or grated parmesan.

It’s so good and healthy you won’t feel guilty going back for seconds or thirds.

What ingredients you need

• White beans (Cannellini, Great Northern beans)
• Canned tomatoes (I used this brand)
• Kale (or spinach, collard green or swiss chard)
• Onion, carrots, celery (soffritto)
• Green beans (or the same amount of carrots)
• Tomato paste
• Oregano & paprika
• Bay leaves
• Broth or water
• Salt & pepper

How to make this bean and kale soup

(Note: the full recipe is at the bottom of the page)

• Sauté diced onion, carrots and celery in olive oil.
• Stir in garlic, paprika, oregano.
• Add the rest of the ingredients, except the kale.
• Cover and cook for 20 minutes.
• Add the kale and cook for a further 3-4 minutes
• Taste, adjust the seasoning and serve!

Recipe notes

White bean and kale soup variations

This recipe is brilliant to use leftover veggies, you can make your own adjustments if you happen to have some ingredients on hand and need to use them up.

• Leafy greens: you can swap spinach, collard greens or swiss chard for kale.
• Green beans: instead of green beans, a handful of mushrooms, one medium-sized zucchini or an extra carrot would too.
• Legumes: chickpeas and black beans instead of white beans work just fine.
• Canned tomatoes: diced or crushed tomatoes and tomato passata are all good.
• Broth: both low sodium vegetable broth or even chicken broth work well in the recipe, however, to keep the calories down you might want to use just hot water.

More recipes featuring beans

Beans have been my staples for years, they provide a multitude of health benefits and make me save plenty of money, too. Here are some of my favorite bean recipes:

• Italian pasta & bean, also known as pasta fazools
• Best white bean soup, rated 5 stars from my readers
• Pasta with black beans, bolognese-style
• Cannellini bean salad, with lemon mustard dressing
• 15 Cannellini bean recipes, a collection of amazing recipes

More low-calorie soups

Healthy and satisfying soups are also the perfect meal if you watch out your calorie intake. Have a look at the following low-calorie delicious soup recipes:

• 15 weight-loss soup recipes, under 200 calories
• Carrot & ginger soup, light and flavorsome
• Vegetarian cabbage soup, spicy and rich
• Spicy and pumpkin carrot soup, creamy and tasty
• Healthy mushroom soup, one of my reader’s favorites

If you make this white bean and kale soup recipe or if you have any questions, let me know! Leave a comment, send me a message, or rate it.
I would love to hear from you!