Our Best Black Bean Soup

Meet our go-to black bean soup recipe! This quick and easy black bean soup is delicious. It’s also vegetarian and vegan when you use vegetable broth!

Watch the Video

Black Bean Soup Recipe Video

Related: For our soup using white beans, try this white bean and veggie soup!

Making Our Favorite Black Bean Soup

When we’re looking for a comforting meal packed with flavor, this easy black bean soup is where we turn. It’s made with previously cooked or canned black beans, onion, carrot, garlic, and flavorful spices. This soup is so good, you will want a batch in the freezer at all times. It’s perfect for busy nights as well as when we feel we’ve over-indulged. Here are a few more reasons we love this black bean soup recipe:

  • There’s no fancy ingredients and inexpensive to make.
  • It keeps well and tastes better the next day, making it perfect to pack for lunches or make ahead for dinner tomorrow night. Leftover soup will last about three days in the refrigerator.
  • It’s vegetarian/vegan (when you use veggie broth).
  • You can freeze it up to a month, if not more!
Pot of black bean soup

How To Make the Best Black Bean Soup

Making black bean soup is simple; it all happens in one pot! To make it, cook onions and carrots in olive oil until soft and sweet. Throw in more flavor with garlic, ground cumin, oregano, red wine vinegar, and chipotle chiles (see my note below).

To make the broth, pour in vegetable stock, canned diced tomatoes, and a bay leaf (you can also use chicken stock). Then, finally, stir in black beans and simmer until the veggies are tender — about 20 minutes. Before serving, taste the soup and season with salt and a little extra acid from vinegar or lime juice. I love lime juice for this and love how it makes the flavors of the soup pop.

Most often, we enjoy this as a broth soup (like in our photos), but you have the option to blend black bean soup so that it is creamy. For a thickened soup, blend a portion of the soup and add it back. Or blend the entire pot using an immersion blender to make it thick and creamy.

A bowl of black bean soup

Making Spicy Black Bean Soup

If you’ve never used canned chipotle chiles in your kitchen before, I highly recommend that you start. The cans are small and inexpensive. We’ve found them sold in most grocery stores (usually next to hot sauces or canned enchilada sauces).

Specifically, you are looking for chipotle chiles in adobo sauce. Chipotles are dried, smoked jalapeños. They are smoky and quite spicy. Adobo sauce is a spicy, red sauce that packs a major punch of flavor. For this soup, I usually add one pepper, which I mince, along with a little sauce. This amount adds enough spice to the soup so that you notice it. For an extra spicy black bean soup, add more.

Since you’ll have some peppers leftover, make sure you save them for other recipes. We’ve used them in in our vegetarian bean chili, to add spice to our black bean and sweet potato tacos, and to spice up mayo for these seared salmon burgers.

More Easy Recipes with Black Beans

Easy Vegetarian Black Bean Soup

Our Best Black Bean Soup

  • PREP
  • COOK
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This quick black bean soup is delicious, and easy to make. It’s also vegetarian and vegan when you use vegetable broth. See our article above for an explanation of chipotles in adobo sauce.

Makes 4 to 6 servings

Watch Us Make the Recipe

You Will Need

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup diced onion (1/2 large onion)

3/4 cup diced carrots (1 large carrot)

1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 cloves)

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar or lime juice

1/2 to 1 pepper from 7-oz. tin chipotle chiles in adobo or use 2 tablespoons hot sauce, see notes

1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes, try fire roasted tomatoes

4 cups vegetable stock, see our homemade veggie broth

4 (15-ounce) cans black beans, drained and rinsed or use 6 cups cooked black beans

1 bay leaf

1/2 cup cilantro leaves, roughly chopped

For serving: Avocado, lime wedges, cilantro, sour cream, cheese

Directions

    1Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven or deep pot over medium heat, and then add the onions and carrot. Cook, stirring often, until they have softened slightly and smell sweet, about 5 minutes.

    2Stir in the garlic, cumin, oregano, and cook for for 30 seconds. Add the vinegar, chipotle peppers, can of tomatoes, broth, black beans, and bay leaf. Bring to a simmer, taste, and then season with salt and pepper.

    3Simmer the soup until the carrots are tender and the broth reduces slightly, about 20 minutes. Stir in the cilantro and the juice from half a lime (or substitute the lime with an additional tablespoon of vinegar).

    4For a brothy soup (like in our photos and video), serve the soup straight away. For a thicker, more velvety soup, transfer 1/4 of the soup to a blender and blend until smooth. Pour the blended portion back into the soup and serve.

Adam and Joanne's Tips

  • Chipotle chiles in adobo sauce: We use 1/2 to 1 whole pepper, which adds a little heat to the soup. For a spicier soup, add more, but be careful, the peppers do pack a punch. Find canned chipotles in adobo sauce in most grocery stores, usually near hot sauces or enchilada sauces.
  • Nutrition facts: The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. We have used the USDA database to calculate approximate values. The recipe makes about 10 to 12 cups of soup.

If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #inspiredtaste — We love to see your creations on Instagram and Facebook! Find us: @inspiredtaste

Nutrition Per Serving Serving Size 1 cup / Calories 169 / Total Fat 2.9g / Saturated Fat 0.5g / Cholesterol 0mg / Sodium 387.2mg / Carbohydrate 27.4g / Dietary Fiber 10.6g / Total Sugars 2.4g / Protein 9g
AUTHOR:  Adam and Joanne Gallagher
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38 comments… Leave a Review
  • Margie March 13, 2024, 7:33 pm

    This soup is so easy and so good.

    Reply
  • Meridith Lafrenz January 7, 2024, 9:32 pm

    Delicious! I don’t often leave reviews, only when I’m duly impressed. Made the recipe exactly as stated and am very happy with it. A definite keeper!

    Reply
  • Georgetta Busler November 12, 2023, 5:25 pm

    I am blown away by how easy and tasty this soup is. I started with home cooked dried organic black beans rather than canned. Being prohibited from using lime juice, I think that cider vinegar works nicely. Thanks for a great recipe.

    Reply
  • Ann Anderson October 16, 2023, 8:28 pm

    This soup is excellent! So many times I add my own additions but definitely not needed with this recipe. It’s going in the rotation!

    Reply
    • Adam October 17, 2023, 12:35 pm

      Yay! So glad you love it 🙂

      Reply
  • Kristle April 6, 2023, 1:50 am

    Thank you for this recipe. I have made it many times now. This last time I made it with your homemade vegetable stock recipe and it was a touch better! Do you know if I can freeze black bean soup? Thanks.

    Reply
    • Joanne April 13, 2023, 5:48 pm

      Hi Kristie, You can freeze the soup for up to a month.

      Reply
  • Jaynae Edney March 7, 2023, 5:52 pm

    It was delicious my entire family loved it. Thank you!

    Reply
  • Jaynae Edney March 6, 2023, 9:39 am

    I am making it today. it sounds and looks delicious.

    Reply
    • Jaynae Edney March 7, 2023, 5:53 pm

      I made it today and my family loved it! Thank you!

      Reply
  • John December 30, 2022, 11:36 pm

    Great recipe, savory and hearty. I lost my old recipe and this one is better. Made a few adjustments improvising with my memory of previous version. Used chicken broth. Had no Adobe peppers so diced one thai pepper and added 5 drops of hickory smoke flavor. Added 1/4 tsp turmeric because its healthy and complements cumin in soup imo. The diced tomatoes, potato and carrot are a nice veggie addition. Thanks for sharing this recipe, was perfect on a cold winter night.

    Reply
  • Kelly Sue Capozzi November 1, 2022, 5:27 pm

    This was fantastic!

    Reply
  • Liz June 26, 2022, 12:32 pm

    I’m an aspiring vegan. I’m obsessed with all things vegan soup. This recipe was sooo delicious. I couldn’t stop eating it. I was worried about how much the recipe yielded, but then was pleasantly pleased that I had so much. I literally ate 3 bowls full the day I made it. This is now my favorite black bean soup recipe! Thank you so much!

    Reply
    • Adam June 26, 2022, 3:17 pm

      So glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the review Liz 🙂

      Reply
  • Mags September 24, 2021, 11:36 am

    I made this in the pressure cooker for 18 minutes. Was absolutely delicious.

    Reply
  • Meghan Newland August 23, 2021, 11:30 pm

    Such great flavor. I am keeping this to make again.

    Reply
  • Hannah Jones June 16, 2021, 8:46 pm

    delicious soup . I just made it my whole family loved it . we sprinkled parmesan on it … thank you 🙂

    Reply
  • Sharita Davis January 20, 2021, 8:24 pm

    I have tried this wonderful masterpiece of a high protein soup. But I had added other ingredients like adding no vinegar, and adding no salt seasoning, season all, chili powder,and cumin, stewed tomatoes, green peas and carrots

    Reply
  • Malenajb@gmail.com January 7, 2021, 1:18 am

    This is outstanding!!!! Absolutely outstanding! My family loved it!!! I was so excited to try this recipe and this was even more delicious than I anticipated. The freshness and rich flavor of each ingredient truly sing! I also loved how the broth was a true broth. It didn’t get overly thick or take over. Outstanding!!!! Thank you!!!

    Reply
    • Jess January 17, 2022, 10:01 pm

      I made this and it was so damn good!! My husband loved it and so did I. Would totally recommend this to anyone.

      Reply
      • Michelle October 9, 2022, 6:25 pm

        I made this for dinner tonight. It’s so good. I will definitely be making it again. I’ve already shared the recipe with a few friends.

        Reply

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