Easy Kale Soup with White Beans, Potatoes + Savory Broth

Here's to a winter filled with healthy comfort foods. First up, this wonderfully savory kale soup with white beans and potatoes.

Tip

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.

Healthy comfort food

Happy New Year, friends! Hope you all enjoyed the last few days of 2016 with your friends and family. We continued what's become our little tradition of hosting good friends for a low-key New Year's Eve overnight with lots of catching up, playing and eating and a good New Year's Day hike.

This year we've added a legit table tennis situation, air hockey and (ahem!) a Wii U to the mix, which definitely didn't detract from the fun we would've had together anyway. As usual not all of us stayed up until midnight, but this time all the kids did.

A time for self-care

I really look forward to this time of year, when there's momentum in the air, both for professional productivity and for being good to ourselves. I'm excited to eat lots of dinners like this one: deeply delicious, super-healthy comfort food. And I'm equally excited to share lots and lots of these recipes with you.

For January and February, I'll be sharing two recipes and one travel post per week, with some bonus interiors and fitness posts sprinkled into the mix. As always, I'd truly love to hear from you about pretty much everything, including what you'd like to see more of on Umami Girl this year.

Easy Kale Soup with White Beans, Potatoes + Savory Broth

Easy Kale Soup with White Beans, Potatoes + Savory Broth
This delicious soup was supposed to be one of those dinners conjured from what we had in the fridge that never saw the light of blog. It was so late by the time we ate it last week that we had to pretend we were in Buenos Aires or Barcelona. We liked it a LOT, so I photographed the leftovers.
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Serves Serves 6

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)

Directions

  1. Warm olive oil over medium-high heat in a large Dutch oven or other heavy pot with a lid. (You'll use the lid later.) Add onion, celery, carrot and one teaspoon of salt and cook, stirring occasionally until lightly browned and somewhat tender, 5-10 minutes. Add garlic, tomato paste and marmite (if using) and cook, stirring, for a minute or two. Pour in broth, raise heat to high and bring to a boil.
  2. Add diced potatoes and remaining teaspoon salt. Cover and reduce heat to simmer. Cook until potatoes are almost tender, 15 minutes or so depending on the size of your dice. Add kale and beans and cook a further 10 minutes, until kale is tender and potatoes are just shy of falling apart.
  3. Off the heat, stir in vinegar, parsley and pepper.
  4. Serve hot with cheese to pass at the table if you like.

Nutrition Information

Amount Per Serving:

Calories:: 397 Total Fat:: 12.7g Carbohydrates:: 61g Fiber:: 11.9g Protein:: 12.9g