Vegan “Bean with Bacon” Soup! A Red Plaid Makeover of Ham and Bean Soup

This was so close to the canned comfort food of my childhood, it was almost like being there. I did not start out with the intention of making “Bean with Bacon”, but here it is! The first challenge I had to overcome was the flavor of bacon. I know that I have never actually encountered a piece of real bacon in any of the canned soup, but the flavor, imitation or otherwise, is what makes it distinctive. I started reading labels. I found a lot of monosodium glutamate, smoke flavoring, ‘natural’ flavors,’spices’, but the real telling one was a label which read “pork style seasoning (yeast flakes, smoked salt)”. This gave me a seasoning springboard. I could use nutritional yeast flakes (which is what ‘yeast flakes’ are) and something smoky. I couldn’t find smoked salt (although I have seen it in the past) so I picked up two things, a can of crushed ‘fire-roasted’ tomatoes, and some Olde Thompson ‘Tex-Mex Chipotle Seasoning’. This gave me my bacon substitute. The rest of the ingredients were easy to sub. Here is the finished result!

Step 1: take 3 cups of dry navy beans (the little white ones) and soak them in plenty of water overnight. Rinse off the soaking water and set the beans out to sprout for the day. That evening put them in a crockpot on low with plenty of water to cover. They will be ready to use the next day. This will make your soup anti-gas!

1 red onion, diced finely (for the finicky, you can pulverize it in your food processor with the s-blade)
4 medium carrots diced finely (for the true canned look, you can use a Progressive Onion chopper, and get perfect tiny squares!)
2 T olive oil
One 14 oz can crushed ‘fire-roasted’ tomatoes
2 T nutritional yeast flakes
¼-1/2 tsp Tex-Mex chipotle seasoning
2-3 tsp sea salt (to your taste, start with 2 and add more if it needs it)
8 cups of the sprouted and low-heated navy beans prepared in step 1 above

1. Sauté the onion and carrot in olive oil until tender, adding water to keep from scorching if necessary.
2. Add tomatoes, ½ a can of water (to rinse all the goody out of the can) yeast flakes, seasoning and salt. Stir well.
3. Stir beans into soup and adjust for saltiness.
4. As with all bean soups it gets better if it sits, (although this was fabulous freshly prepared) and it freezes beautifully.