Quick and Easy Black Bean Soup
There are a lot of ways to make black bean soup but sometimes, when mean prepping meals for up to four days at a time it’s okay to take short cuts. If you’d prefer, you can use dried bean that have been soaked overnight or rinsed canned beans. We use Trader Joes Black bean soup when we don’t feel like soaking beans.
Ingredients include:
- Trader Joe’s Black Bean soup in the carton
- 1 carton of sliced mushrooms
- 1 bell pepper (bonus if it’s from your garden)
- 1/2 of a small onion minced
- jalepeno or serrano hot peppers (as many or as few as you can stand)
- liquid smoke, a heap of garlic, garlic salt, cumin, paprika, cinnamon, black pepper
- cilantro to garnish
- avocado
- sour cream
- lime
Start by putting oil of choice in the skillet to saute the mushrooms, hot and bell peppers like you’re making a fajita. Once softened, add garlic and liquid smoke. After cooking for two to three minutes turn down the heat to a simmer and pour in the soup mixture. Stirring occasionally, add a 3 shakes of garlic salt, 2 shakes of cumin, 1/2 shake of cinnamon and 2 shakes of both black pepper and paprika.
We use the terms shakes because we don’t use a measuring cup when it comes to spices unless we’re attempting to bake. Cover and let simmer while you slice the avocado and lime in addition to washing and slicing the cilantro. To make the meal extra hearty, feel free to steam some tamales beforehand and place them in the bowl under the soup or on the side garnished with the listed toppings. Ladle the soup into the bowl, add the sliced avocado, sour cream and cilantro. Squeeze the lime juice all over the delicious food and you’re good to go. After you eat, ladle the soup into clean mason jars and you’ve started meal prepping. This meal shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes to make.