Longevity Vegetable Bean Soup

A hearty vegetable and bean soup with big flavor and simple ingredients. Nourishing, flexible and perfect for easy weeknight cooking.

Longevity Vegetable Bean Soup

Every now and then, I stumble on a recipe that has good bones but needs a little coaxing to come alive.

That’s exactly how this soup started - as a clipped recipe for Dr. Greger’s Live Longer Vegetable Bean Soup - a weight loss soup - that promised nourishment but was a little lacking in flavor to my liking.

So I did what any Gulf Coast cook would do: I layered in flavor until it felt like home!

Ham and bean soup, made with a ham hock or ham bone stock, a mixture of veggies and Navy pea beans.

Ham and Bean Soup

The soup photos I ended up with for my post don't really give justice to the beauty of this soup, and of course, the soup was long gone before I uploaded the shots I took. I can assure you of one thing though. This soup is divinely delicious! It was gone in no time at our house and I was left with that wish I had more feeling.

Old School Ham Bone Beans

Somewhere between a soup and stew, all thick and creamy and soothing, this full bodied and flavorful pot of white beans is all due to the ham bone.

Ham Bone Beans

I don't know about the rest of y'all but I sure have had a difficult time getting back into the swing this week. I've been busy enough writing new recipes and even cooking, but it's the post writing part that has me pulling off my best procrastination act this week.

For instance, I fully intended to have this recipe up on Monday... and here it is already Wednesday. I had it mostly done, I just kept putting off finishing the final cut and the coding that goes with all this website business.

A hearty soup of navy beans with a mirepoix of veggies and plenty of bacon flavor.

Bean with Bacon Soup

I've had this Bean with Bacon soup on my mind for awhile now since the canned version of Campbells is one of The Cajun's favorite. Since the dry beans had been hanging around the pantry waiting for me to write this soup recipe, I decided to go ahead and make it this weekend.

Now, fair warning. This is a bean with bacon soup, so seeing as bacon is a primary ingredient, well... I used a full package of bacon for a pound of beans. I wanted PUH-lenty of bacon flavor, so don't go scoffing at me okay? Use what you want - even 4 slices would probably still make a nice flavorful soup - but I say go for it.

A full-flavored soup made with mixed beans, ham, the trinity and dried herbs.

Mixed Bean Soup

I had a couple of 1-pound packages of mixed bean soup mix in my pantry that I'd gotten from a food box, and to be honest, I had never been much fond of these mixes. Just too many different beans going on for me and I'm never quite sure what to do with them, or even how to season them.