Vegetable and White Bean Chowder – all the flavors you love of a traditional clam chowder but made vegetarian friendly!!
This Vegetable and White Bean Chowder is healthy, nourishing and is just the thing for a chilly evening.
With the approaching holidays, nutritious, easy to make soups are a wonderful way to manage the onslaught of delicious and rich treats.
Easy to make with infinite varieties, it is a terrific way to get more vegetables in your diet – or in my case legumes – beans to be specific. I’ve always been a black bean fan, but cannelli beans? Eh…. not my favorites. So, I decided to challenge myself to develop a soup using white beans that I would not only eat but enjoy. This Vegetable and White Bean Chowder is a riff on clam chowder – I amped up the vegetables and replaced most of the milk with stock. The result? A soup that still has a rich, satisfying flavor with more vegetables and fiber!
Interested in more vegetarian soup options? You might like this 30 minute Indian Spiced Red Lentil Soup
or perhaps this smoky lentil tomato soup!
White Bean Chowder
Ingredients
- White Bean Chowder
- Serves 4
- 4 slices vegetarian bacon cut into ½ inch pieces
- 1 Tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1 cup finely diced red onion
- ½ cup finely diced celery
- ½ cup finely diced carrot
- ½ cup finely diced red bell pepper
- ½ cup dry sherry
- 1 Tbsp. flour
- 1 tsp. minced fresh thyme or ½ tsp. dried
- 5 cups vegetable stock
- 2 – 15 oz. cans white cannelli beans rinsed and drained
- ½ cup milk or half and half
- salt and white pepper to taste
Instructions
- In a dutch oven or large soup pot cook the bacon over medium high heat until browned and crisp.
- Remove from the pot and set aside.
- Add 1 Tablespoon butter to the pot.
- Return pot to medium high heat and add the onions, celery, carrots, and red bell pepper.
- Saute until vegetables are softened – about 3 minutes.
- Increase heat to high and add the sherry – scraping up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan.
- Cook until almost all the sherry has evaporated – about 4 minutes.
- Reduce the heat to medium and sprinkle flour and thyme over the vegetables.
- Stir and cook for 1 – 2 minutes.
- Add the vegetable stock, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan. Increase heat to high and bring soup to a boil.
- Reduce heat to medium and simmer the soup for about 4 minutes. Add the beans, bacon and the milk or half and half.
- Taste and adjust seasonings.
- Garnish with additional minced vegetables or fresh thyme if desired.
Nutrition
This looks delicious. Something I’d be perfectly happy with having for dinner while my husband is traveling (since he doesn’t view “soup” as dinner! So frustrating!)
I know exactly what you mean!! My husband loves soup for dinner but it is never enough to fill up two teenage boys so I always have to have something more substantial besides the soup!!
looks delicious! It’s getting colder as the week goes on and I can tell the rain will come and I’ll need soup. Thanks for the wonderful recipe!
I think I will be making another batch of this on the weekend… brrrr….
I’m with you about all the parties and high calorie food that comes with them. Always love soups and a bean chowder is nutritious and satisfying. I’d love to participate in Soup-a-palooza!
Either the parties have to stop, or I am going to have to resort to elastic waist pants!!! It was so fun to see you on Saturday – maybe when Kim’s better we can do breakfast!!
Oh this looks wonderful – I am not a fan of chowders normally but since yours is not clam or corn, I think I might really like this! So pretty too! Yeah, plus, it has BACON!
Heck yeah!! EVERYTHING may be better with butter, but in my house it’s bacon!!!
A lightened chowders sounds perfect right now, and I even already like white beans! The fresh veggie garnish looks great too.
The garnish worked really well – I really liked the crunch that it added to the soup!
I am such a soup addict too !
You and me both Kate – I honestly think I could eat it every day!!
Love your modified soup! Bet it’ll be just what I need to knock the flu. 🙂 And perfect for the stormy days we have coming up ahead…
[K]
I have to admit this came out better than I thought it would. The beans really taste good in it!! I am so sorry that you are sick with the flue – that is just no fun!!
Love these stormy days since I get to make all the cold weather dishes that I love!
I love that you did this as a chowder, looks amazing 🙂
Thanks so much – it is really a tasty chowder!!
Nancy, this soup looks awesome!! Thanks for sharing this comforting recipe with us 🙂 Anything with a bit of bacon is a friend of mine.
I love bean soups. i’m also not a huge fan of white beans but I want to give this a try. And can I just say that your photography is looking SO good. This picture is exceptionally good.
Hope all is well with you and your family.
Hi Damaris!!
Thanks so much for the shout out on Twitter!!! I have to say I really enjoyed the beans in this soup – for some reason they took on a depth of flavor that was surprising. Thanks to for the compliment on the photography. It isn’t where I want it yet, but I am getting there!!!
Hope all is well with your crew as well!
Looks delicious and straight forward to make, I will definitely have to give this a try. I love cannellini beans, especially when you cook them a long time and they break down and make the soup all nice and thick.
Life of Pi is such a good book, you have inspired me to reread it!
Hi Mary!!
Hope you enjoy the soup… I am sure that it would go well with the book!!!
This looks delicious, but … (all joking aside) bacon is vegetarian? 😮
this intrigues me! I must make it!
I’m echoing LQ. It may have lots of vegetables, but that’s not quite what vegetarian means. Most vegetarians I know wouldn’t eat soup with meat stock, let alone thick-cut bacon.
Hello Lydia,
If you will note, the recipe calls for chicken or vegetable stock. As for the bacon, I did err in not adding that vegetarian “bacon” may be used instead. Thank you for pointing that out and I will be making that correction!
did you add the bacon back in, or is it just for flavour?
Looks great BTW
I did add it in as a garnish when I served it. Had it the next day w/o the bacon and it still tasted had that smokey flavor so you could do it either way!
I’ve never cooked with or even bought sherry before. Any suggestions on brands and types of sherry?
Hi Leslie!!
I use a couple of different sherries depending upon what I am using them for – for the soup, an inexpensive sherry works fine – the one I use is from California. In dishes where the sherry plays more of a “starring role” I use a good Amontillado sherry – to find one that suits your needs I would try a good wine store and talk with the owner for a recommendation based upon what you are going to be using the sherry for!
Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an really long comment
but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t show up.
Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyhow, just wanted to say superb blog!
Awww… I am so sorry your comment didn’t show up … but I am very glad that you like the blog!!
I may have missed it (sleep deprivation!) but where do you add the bacon back in?
Hello Sarah!
Ah, proof that I absolutely need a proof reader! You can add the bacon back when you add the milk OR if you like the crunch of the bacon, you can add it just before serving!!!
Can this be frozen & reheated in a crockpot?
Hi Laura! Yes, although the texture will change so in order to keep the soup creamy, I would set aside the portion you want to freeze before adding the fat free half and half or cream and add it after re heating in the crock pot! You made need to add a little extra stock or water to the soup after freezing since it will thicken!
Looks perfect for a cold, wintry night in front of the fire.