Tomato White Bean Soup – A 15 Minute Dinner

This tomato white bean soup is a quick, hearty meal you can make in just 15 minutes using simple pantry staples. With tender white beans, diced tomatoes, and fresh spinach in a flavorful broth, it’s healthy comfort food for busy nights. With 6 basic ingredients that’s easy to customize with what you have on hand, it’s a one dish dinner you need for easy menu planning.

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This is another recipe in our occasional, ongoing series of easy meals from your pantry! For this series “pantry” includes not only the pantry shelves, but also the things we may have (or that we preserved!) in our fridges and freezers, too.

This recipe for a hearty and healthy tomato and white bean soup was inspired by a reader’s suggestion and is basically the winter version of the white bean salad with shrimp – a quick, filling meal, but this time warm and cozy for blustery nights.

Yes, more white beans – what can I say? They are a great, neutral bean that compliment a lot of different flavors. Beans provide fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals and can easily be the main star of a recipe – and inexpensively at that.

In this case, we’re going for an Italian flavor mixing the beans with a can of tomatoes, chicken broth, spinach, and seasonings, topping it all with parmesan cheese if you’ve got it on hand. The result is something you won’t believe only took 15 minutes to prepare AND cook – really.

This recipe also really lends itself to be customized with whatever you have on hand and how much time to you have to add more things. It’s especially a good way to use up leftovers like roasted vegetables or cooked meat.

Recipe Ingredients Notes

The photo above shows all the ingredients I used, though at it’s basic, the soup is only 5 ingredients: tomatoes, beans, broth, onions, garlic, and seasoning.

• White beans: Can you use another bean instead? Of course! Garbanzo beans can be used with the recipe as-is and I’ve used black beans with a cajun seasoning instead of Italian. See more bean-seasoning options in the Variations section below.
• Diced tomatoes: Use any type of tomato you have, if it’s whole tomatoes simply chop them up first. Home canned diced tomatoes of course work well, as do fresh tomatoes, though it will add time to the recipe to chop them.
• Broth: I used homemade chicken broth I had in the freezer. You can also use a carton or can of chicken broth or 1.5 cups of water + 1.5 teaspoons of chicken broth base (I don’t recommend bouillon cubes – most are only salt, sugar, and flavorings and some don’t have any chicken in them at all!). To make this vegetarian, use a vegetable broth.
• Onions and garlic: Most pantries include these long-lasting bulbs and of course the flavor they bring is amazing. Chopping these adds the most time to the recipe, but this is a case of it being well worth it.
• Spinach: Technically this is optional but it adds nutrition as well as great color and body to the soup. Frozen is great, too. You can also use kale or chard, but you’ll want to chop them finer and add them when you add the tomatoes since they benefit from longer cooking.
• Seasonings: Salt and pepper are a must and you can choose the other seasonings you’d like. I’ve chosen Italian with a few red pepper flakes. Basil or oregano are good as is another seasoning blend like cajun, chili powder, or taco (customizing these creates whole other dishes for your menu planning, as you can see in the Variations section below!).
• Optional topping: Grated parmesan is perfect with the Italian seasoning and adds a nice flavor. Any type of grated cheese would be good, but you can also top with chopped herbs, fried onions, or pickled jalapeños.

Let’s Make Tomato White Bean Soup

That’s it! It of course can cook longer if you need it to, but you can simply serve it right away topped with cheese or not.

So Many Recipe Variations

• To make this a thicker stew or a bean dish to scoop with a flatbread like focaccia, decrease the chicken broth or omit all together.
• Add cooked chicken, beef, or shrimp – a great way to use up leftovers.
• Add leftover roasted vegetables – tons of flavor.
• Add frozen broccoli or cauliflower – add with the tomatoes and broth.
• Use chopped kale or chard, either frozen or fresh (add with onions if using fresh).
• Add bacon: Cook it until crisp, remove to drain and then sauté the garlic and onion in the fat. Serve the soup with crumbled bacon on top.
• Change the flavor with different seasonings and beans. Examples include red beans with Cajun seasoning, black beans with taco seasoning, and pinto beans with chili powder seasoning or Tex-Mex seasoning.

Storage

• Refrigerator: Store this in an airtight container in the fridge for 4-5 days.
• Reheating: Heat in a saucepan or microwave for a few minutes until hot.
• Freezing: You can make a bigger batch of this and freeze it in 1-cup portions for an even faster meal! I love using Souper Cubes to freeze soups and stews like this – just remove them when frozen and keep in a container to pull out perfect portions when you need. Frozen soup will keep 3-6 months.

I hope you enjoy this quick pantry tomato white bean soup – if you make it, be sure to leave a rating and review so I know how you liked it!

Recipes To Serve This With

Since it’s a one-dish dinner, you can eat it alone but I like to serve it with bread to soak up the yummy broth.

• Easy No Knead Sourdough Focaccia (Long Ferment)
• Amazing 100% Whole Wheat Flaky Homemade Biscuits
• Tutorial: Simple French Baguettes Recipe – The Bread You Can’t Stop Eating
• Easy Artisan Bread Recipe (Yeast, Dutch Oven, Whole Wheat)

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