White Bean Kale Soup

With these colder months, I have been making a lot of soups, stews, and chilis.  This recipe is one of my family's favorite soups.

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
• 4 medium carrots, sliced
• 3 small celery ribs, sliced
• 5 garlic gloves
• 4 tablespoons dried oregano
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 2 15oz cans white beans
• 1 Tablespoon nutritional yeast
• 3 cups kale (or more)
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.  Add the onion, carrots, celery, garlic and oregano and saute until the onion is translucent.
2. Add the broth, beans, and nutritional yeast.  Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil.  Once it begins to boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer 20 minutes, or until the carrots are soft.
3. Once the carrots are soft, blend with a stick blender to the desired consistency.  (I leave some soup unblended to add texture.)
4. Add kale and allow to simmer for about 4 more minutes.
5. Season with salt and pepper, serve, and enjoy!

This soup tastes best the next day.  However, the soup is so good it is hard to wait that long!  I highly recommend doubling the recipe so you can eat some immediately and save the leftovers for another day.

This is such an easy soup to make.  The hardest part is chopping the vegetables, but you can use a food processor to help chop vegetables or I have found that buying pre-chopped vegetables is a great alternative for when you are in a rush or don't mind spending a few extra bucks to save some time.  We get these pre-chopped carrots, onions, and celery from Trader Joe's:

I am roughly estimating that this recipe makes six servings.
One serving is approximately 175 calories and 9.5g protein.