Marcella Hazan's White Bean Soup Comes Together In Just 15 Minutes (With Just 5 Ingredients)

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Just like her magic three-ingredient tomato sauce, Marcella Hazan's white bean soup is one of those dishes that proves that great cooking doesn't need time or a cart of specialty groceries. In her book, "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking," she prepares this soup with only five key ingredients: Olive oil, garlic, broth, white beans, and parsley. The garlic is sautéed in a half-cup of olive oil for richness, then the beans and stock are added to simmer for a few minutes. Next, the beans are scooped with a ladle, puréed, and returned to the pot. This gives the soup a silky thickness without needing to include starch or cream, and it helps the soup to retain its color before adding the chopped parsley at the end.

The whole recipe comes together in around 15 minutes if you use store-bought chicken broth and canned beans that don't require soaking. Of course, you can put in extra effort in exchange for an even more refined final product. For example, it's often argued that homemade broth is superior to store-bought. This doesn't require much work, but you'll need time for it to simmer, and a longer list of ingredients (including leftover store-bought rotisserie chicken). You can also just buy a fancier stock, too — the liquid version in cartons is usually considered superior to the powdered form, although some swear by concentrates like Better Than Bouillon. However you prepare the broth, you'll want to serve this white bean soup with some crusty bread to soak it all up.

Another idea that Marcella Hazan might advocate for is the use of high-quality dried beans instead of canned varieties. Dried beans are considered tastier, as they retain a pleasant, slightly firmer texture when cooked, while also soaking up other flavors from the recipe. They're also cheaper, but you'll pay with a little more time and effort. There are two main steps you'll need here: First, the beans need to be soaked before cooking, anywhere from eight hours to overnight. Soaking them in salt water is ideal, as this weakens the cell walls, allowing them to soak up more flavor. They'll also need a little longer to cook after the soak — somewhere around 30 minutes is probably good instead of the 10 to 12 minutes Hazan's recipe suggests for canned beans. You can also speed things up by cooking dried beans in an Instant Pot.

If you use top-quality beans, you'll be rewarded with a memorable dish that doesn't require a ton of extra elements. Hazan's other white bean recipes prove this point. They typically keep things simple, with beans adding some heft and flavor to herbs, oil, or vinegar. A summery alternative to this soup dish is Hazan's bean and tuna salad, which only needs onion, tuna, beans, olive oil, vinegar, salad, and pepper. Additionally, you can thicken the original soup recipe with onions, herbs, and Parmesan cheese for another deliciously hearty winter meal.