By Sarah DiGregorio
- Total Time
- 6½ hours on high (or 12½ hours on low)
- Rating
- 4(472)
- Notes
- Read community notes
This classic Italian vegetable soup is a wonderful way to use up stale bread and leftover vegetables — and can be prepared in a pot, in a pressure cooker, or in a slow cooker. With the exception of sliced sandwich bread (which is too flimsy), any crusty bread will work here: sourdough, ciabatta, multigrain and so on. (Since you’re toasting it, it’s not necessary for the bread to be stale, but it certainly can be.) The olive-oil-rich sautéed vegetables melt into the soup as it simmers, but you can throw in other leftover cooked vegetables at the end, with the greens.
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Ingredients
Yield:6 to 8 servings
- ¼cup olive oil, plus more for drizzling
- 1large yellow or red onion, finely chopped
- Kosher salt and black pepper
- 1large leek, trimmed, white and light green parts sliced
- 3celery stalks, finely chopped
- 1small fennel bulb, bulb cored and finely chopped, fronds reserved
- 14garlic cloves, smashed and roughly chopped
- 2dried bay leaves
- 1teaspoon red-pepper flakes, plus more for serving
- 1cup dry white wine
- 5cups chicken or vegetable stock
- 1½cups dried white beans, such as cannellini or great Northern (no need to soak)
- 1(15-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
- 3fresh thyme sprigs or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1fresh rosemary sprig or ½ teaspoon dried rosemary
- 2tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from about ½ lemon)
- 1bunch kale, chard or collards (about 12 ounces), stemmed and finely chopped, or 1 (10-ounce) bag frozen chopped spinach or kale
- 2teaspoons balsamic vinegar, preferably aged
- 8thick slices crusty bread
- 1garlic clove, cut in half
- Olive oil
- 8ounces smoked or regular mozzarella, cut into 8 (¼-inch-thick) slices
For the Soup
For the Toasts
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (8 servings)
552 calories; 24 grams fat; 7 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 12 grams monounsaturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 58 grams carbohydrates; 12 grams dietary fiber; 10 grams sugars; 25 grams protein; 1062 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
Step
1
Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven or skillet over medium. Add the onion, season with salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until limp and translucent, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the leek, celery and fennel, season with salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and fragrant, about 8 minutes. Add the chopped garlic, bay leaves, red-pepper flakes and white wine; season generously with black pepper. Stir well and let the wine come to a simmer before turning off the heat.
Step
2
Scrape the mixture into a 6- to 8-quart slow cooker. Add the stock, beans, tomatoes, thyme, rosemary and lemon juice. Cook until the beans are tender and creamy, about 6 hours on high or 12 hours on low.
Step
3
Before serving, remove and discard the bay leaves and herb sprigs. Switch the slow cooker to high (if it’s not already), and stir in the greens and vinegar.
Step
4
Let the greens cook while you make the toasts: Turn on your broiler. Rub the bread slices with the halved garlic and drizzle them with olive oil. Position a rack 6 inches from the broiler, then toast sliced bread under the broiler until very light golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Add 1 slice of mozzarella to each toast and broil until softened and browned in spots. Taste the soup and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Step
5
Divide the soup among bowls and add a mozzarella toast to each bowl. Garnish with the reserved fennel fronds, and additional black pepper or red-pepper flakes, if desired.
Tip
- Dried, soaked beans should reach a simmer and cook until tender to be safe to eat. If your slow cooker does not reach a simmer on the low setting, increase the heat level to high, and ensure the beans cook at a simmer for at least 15 minutes at some point in the cooking process.
Ratings
4
out of 5
472
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Cooking Notes
Chris Perrin
One should not cook dried beans in a liquid that is acidic ( e. g., containing tomatoes) as acid prevents the beans from softening.
Staci
How long did you cook for using the canned beans?
chris
I cook Rancho Gordo Cannellini beans regularly, not soaked, in a slow cooker on high for 4 hours and they are always very soft. Maybe all the additional ingredients changes the cooking time. Also, older beans require longer cooking times. When I've made Ribollita in the past I cook the beans in the slow cooker and the rest on stove top, add the bean liquid as stock to the vegetable mixture and add the cooked beans, half of them pureed.
Rebecca
Upon the advice of others, I did soak the beans overnight and added more cooking time (7 hours on high). The beans were cooked perfectly and the Ribolitta was delicious. It was quite garlicky with the 14 cloves, so might cut that back a bit next time and not use garlic on the toasts. Otherwise, it was perfect!
Sandy Shahwan
I made it exactly the same way and used 2 cans cannelinni or white beans, cooked in a shorter period of time and you will never know they were canned beans (don't forget to rinse the beans first).
Jann
I'm just here for the smoked mozzarella toasts.
AMBmass
Multo buono!! Next time I will soak the beans. Even after 7 hours on high many of them were not fully cooked. I used the food processor to chop the vegetables. Onions first, and once they were in the pan cooking, everything else but the garlic! I did the garlic by hand. Processor really cut down the prep work!
KClarke
Agree with other comments, I also had crunchy beans. We were so excited to eat this but had to wait for a couple rounds of pressure cooking for the beans to be edible. Recommend pre soaking!
Laura G
I much prefer diced tomatoes to crushed tomatoes in this recipe. Bean do need extra time.
Candice
I loved this soup! I cooked it for 8 hours in my Instant Pot on the slow cooker setting and the beans came out perfectly without the pre soak overnight. I also didn’t think the garlic was overpowering and enjoyed the flavor.
Beth
This was fantastic. I used cranberry beans that I soaked for a few hours. The soup was done after @5 hours on high. It has a great depth of flavor and it was a hit with the adult dinner guests and the kids. This is going into monthly rotation…I can’t wait for leftovers tomorrow.
Rachel D
I cooked for 12 hours on low heat. The beans were firm but cooked through. Also cut back on garlic. Delicious on a chilly day.
Andy Milder
We enjoyed this. It’s got some nice zip, and yes, we did soak our beans. However, we thought it was a little too loose, so we’ll probably cut back at least a cup of stock next time.
Matt C.
This just wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. A lot of work for an average soup.
no-apron
I added the tomato and lemon juice at the end as recommended and started with dried beans. 12 ounces of kale is a lot of kale. I even weighed before removing the stems. Way too much but I trusted the recipe and then had to cook on stovetop, defeating the benefit of cleanup with a slow cooker. This soup was not noteworthy and the recipe is poor - if I hadn’t read the comments I would have made no adjustments…I will not make this again.
Silbermuti
Presoak beans or use canned
Heather
Okay honestly I missed some ingredients (didn’t have celery or fennel), subbed some things (canned chickpeas for the beans), and accidentally used double the tomatoes. I ended up adding half a box of pasta to absorb the extra liquid and cooked the whole thing in a Dutch oven in about 30-45 minutes. It was still delicious, for the mozzarella toasts I drizzled it with a EVOO and a thick, sweet balsamic. The base of white wine, broth, and tomatoes is always a winner you can’t go wrong here.
Lynn
This tasted like beans cooked in tomato sauce. Will not be making again.
PemicanMouse
As with all classic recipes, it pays to Google it to get more of the history, background and variations. This version of the classic is good, but the classic is quite open to interpretation.
Elizabeth
My beans were totally soft without soaking. This soup was the bomb, that is all.
SeattleSlew
Soaked dry Cannellini beans overnight with salt and a pinch of baking soda (per Samin Nosrat's NYT refried bean recipe) and held off adding the tomatoes and lemon juice (acidic liquids prevent the beans from softening) until near then end. Used a Dutch oven. Total stove top time for soft beans was 3 1/2 to 4 hrs. Otherwise followed the recipe Hearty and satisfying. Don't skip the mozzarella on toast!
Candice
I loved this soup! I cooked it for 8 hours in my Instant Pot on the slow cooker setting and the beans came out perfectly without the pre soak overnight. I also didn’t think the garlic was overpowering and enjoyed the flavor.
Thaddeus
I realize the slow cooker approach is to throw everything together and forget it until it's time to sit down and eat. However, I have to agree with other comments and my experience cooking beans, you can't expect the dry beans to soften in the time suggested with all the acid from the lemon and tomatoes in the mix from the start. I tried, and as I expected it took about 12 hours to get the beans to al dente. Next time I will leave the acids out until the last hour of cook time, or use canned.
Lee Seiden
I was afraid the beans would not cook with the acidic ingredients but they did - though they were a bit al dente after 6 hours. Not inedible by any means, but I like them soft in this type of dish. I added partially frozen spinach near the end of the cooking time, which may have been the reason they weren’t quite done. I ate it at this point, and it was delicious, but I cooked it another half hour, which softened up the beans for leftovers.
Andrea
Dried cannellini beans are hard to find. I will try this with chick peas, which do well in a slow cooker. The poster above is correct re: beans and tomatoes. Wait until the beans are softening before adding tomatoes. I learned this the hard way — a pot of lentils that never became edible.
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