Name: Easy Kale Soup with White Beans, Potatoes + Savory Broth
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1/4 cup olive oil; 1 large yellow onion, diced small; 2 stalks celery, diced small; 2 medium carrots, diced small; 2 teaspoons salt, divided; 6 cloves garlic, minced; 2 tablespoons tomato paste; 1 teaspoon marmite (optional); 7 cups good vegetable broth; 2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced; 2 bunches Lacinato kale, stemmed and torn into bite-sized pieces; 2 15.5-ounce cans white beans, rinsed and drained; 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar; 1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley; Freshly ground black pepper to taste; Parmesan cheese for serving (optional)

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This wonderfully savory kale soup with white beans and potatoes is fabulous healthy comfort food. It's naturally vegan and gluten-free. Try our popular lentil and mushroom stew with spinach, too.

Easy Kale Soup with White Beans, Potatoes + Savory Broth- 780 | Umami Girl-2

Why we love this recipe

I get super-jazzed about dinners like this one: deeply delicious, super-healthy comfort food. There's so much good-for-you produce packed into this one-bowl meal, but it leads with comfort and satisfaction, so you'll hardly notice its nutritional profile unless you want to.

Plus, it's ready in 45 minutes, cooks in one pot, and makes a nice big batch that keeps well in the fridge for a week.

collage of the first eight steps to make kale soup, adding olive oil, onion, carrot, celery, salt, garlic, and tomato paste to a large pot and stirring

Kale soup ingredients

Here's what you'll need to make this comforting pot of soup:

Olive oil
Onion
Carrot
Celery
Garlic
Tomato paste
Marmite (optional) — A touch of the English condiment Marmite adds an extra layer of savoriness to this stew, but in a pinch, you can leave it out.
Vegetable broth
Yukon gold potatoes
White beans
So. Much. Kale.
Balsamic vinegar
Fresh parsley
Salt and pepper

collage of second group of 8 steps to making kale soup: adding optional marmite, cooking the vegetables down, adding vegetable broth, potatoes, and white beans and cooking until potatoes are tender

How to make kale soup

Here's what you'll do to make this recipe in one pot in about 45 minutes. You can watch all the steps in action in the video that accompanies this post.

Start with a nice big pot that has a lid (which you'll use later). We use our 7.25-quart Dutch oven.
Heat the olive oil in the pot.
Add the onion, carrots, and celery, along with some salt, and cook until a little bit browned (which helps contribute to the flavor of the soup) and softened.
Stir in the garlic, tomato paste, and marmite if you're using it, and cook for a couple more minutes.
Pour in the broth and bring to a boil.
Add the potatoes and cook until they're just tender.
Add the beans and the kale (by the handful, stirring to incorporate until it all fits) and cook until the kale is tender.
Off the heat, stir in the balsamic vinegar, the parsley, and some freshly ground black pepper.
Serve with grated cheese if you like (or skip it — it's great either way).

collage of 8 final steps to making kale soup: adding kale to the pot, simmering until tender, adding balsamic vinegar, parsley, and pepper, and ladling into a bowl

More healthy comfort food favorites

We really love this kind of meal. Here's a shortlist of some of our other favorites:

Hungry for more?

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Yield: Serves 6