Three Bean Soup

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Monday I made Three Bean Soup for dinner.
I already had some Great Northern and Kidney beans cooked and in the freezer so I needed to cook some black beans so my soup could be a true “three beans”.

I decided to demonstrate the “quick cook” method for cooking beans.
(note: when cooking dry beans nothing is truly quick)
I started by measuring my beans, dumping them in a big pot and covering them by several inches of water, you will cook off a lot of water, so don’t be shy, start out with lots of water.

I needed 2 cups for the recipe, so I measured out one cup of dry beans.

I brought them to a boil, then turned the heat down so they would simmer.
It took about 4 hours of simmering for the beans to become soft. Be careful to watch the water level, it is easy for the water to simmer off, and burnt beans smell really bad!

When following recipes you need to take into consideration your altitude. If I was closer to sea level it would have taken less time, if I was higher, more time. The higher you get the lower the boiling point of water becomes. Therefore you are not cooking your beans as at high of temperature. I am at about 4700 feet, and it took about 4 hours.

Once they were done I rinsed them off and sat them to the side while I got my other ingredients together.

Here is the cast of characters:
4 cups cooked beans (any kind)
4 cups stewed tomatoes
1 1/2 cups corn
1 can chili peppers
1 Onion, chopped
1 tsp garlic powder
1-2 Tbsp Chili powder (depending on your taste)

Chop your onion….

And dump everything into a pot….

Bring everything to a boil and let it simmer for an hour.


and that is it


I served this with Cheese and Corn Bread.

It is soooooo good!
and so low fat!
Unless you count the cheese, and the corn bread…
This would also be good with tortilla chips…there are so many possibilities.

This could be easily be made in the crock pot.
Also if you don’t want to to the trouble of cooking the beans, four small cans of whatever beans you like would work, along with 2-15 oz cans of stewed tomatoes and a can of corn.

I figure minus the cheese and corn bread this meal cost me 4$, the tomatoes did come out of my garden, so if you added the cost of those it would be more…even then it would still be super cheap, and it fed my family of 7 with enough for left overs.

(p.s. I am going to blog my corn bread recipe soon. Actually, it isn’t my recipe, it is my good friend Katie’s recipe and it is really, really good…my all time favorite!)

If you would like some more recipes and kitchen tips, check out Tammy’s site

8 thoughts on “Three Bean Soup”

  2. Wow, that does look good! I can’t wait to try it. Speaking of which, I need to get some beans soaking for later this week!

  3. I so appreciate all the bean recipes. I really want to learn to cook and use more beans. For now, we mostly do Cuban black beans (mmm) but I need to learn so much more!

  4. That sounds a lot like the Mexican soup we make at our house. Only I am lazy and always buy the canned beans (although I am going to try cooking dry beans one of these days, I promise!)

  6. we get beans with WIC, and i’m trying to find ways to use them, thanks for the idea! i think this soup looks GOOD…oh, i make my soups the same way, THICK..wouldn’t that make them stews? what about ham or pork of some kind in it, do you think that would work all right?? i always serve corn bread with soup…oh, and i like mustard on my one bean and hamhock soup, with some fresh onion added in after, but the cheese looks like a good idea too!

  7. This looks good, and beans are so economical. I wish we could tolerate them better! Thanks for stopping by my blog.

  8. That looks wonderful. Thanks for sharing it would be great to cook on the wood burner this winter for us. I’ll have to bookmark this for future reference.
    Thanks Aimee,

    Peace, Kris