Blockbuster Vegetarian Crock Pot Black Bean Soup

Sharon123's Note:

This soup is really yummy and healthy too! This makes a main dish accompanied by tortillas, or crusty french bread and a nice salad!Caribbean, Cuban, Mexican and Spanish influences! It really is best if the beans are soaked overnight.And depending on your cooker, the soup might need to be cooked longer.

• Total Time: 6 hrs
• Prep Time: 1 hrs
• Cook Time: 5 hrs

Ingredients:

Servings: 10

• 1 lb dried black beans (soaked overnight)
• 1 1/2 quarts water
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 1 large red onion, chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 green bell peppers, chopped
• 2 jalapeno peppers, chopped
• 1/4 cup lentils
• 1 (28 ounce) can peeled and diced tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 cup uncooked white rice or 1/2 cup brown rice
• sour cream
• lime wedge
• cilantro

Directions:

1. Soak beans overnight in water to cover.
2. If you don't soak the beans overnight:.
3. In a large pot over medium heat, place the beans in three times their volume of water.
4. Bring to a boil and let boil 10 minutes.
5. Cover, remove from heat and let stand 1 hour.
6. Drain and rinse.
7. In a crock pot, combine soaked beans and 1 1/2 quarts fresh water.
8. Cook for 3-7 hours on high, depending on how hot your cooker gets.
9. Stir in carrot, celery, onion, garlic, bell pepper, jalapeno, lentils and tomatoes.
10. Season with chili powder, cumin, oregano, black pepper, red wine vinegar and salt.
11. Cook on low, 2 to 3 hours.
12. Stir the rice into the crock pot in the last 20 minutes of cooking (if using brown rice add the last 1 hour).
13. Puree half the soup with a blender or food processor, then pour back into the pot before serving.
14. Serve with lime wedges, sour cream, and cilantro.
15. Enjoy!

Reviews

[Judithm]

As with one of the previous reviewers, my beans were still hard at the end of the projected cooking time, but I thought it was because of my failure to correctly read the recipe. I did not cook the first three hours on high but instead on low. Therefore, I cooked longer until the beans were soft. By that time, the soup was thick enough that I did not have to puree half of it. In addition, I did not have lentils, so I increased the amount of rice (brown) by 1/4 cup. Both my husband and I thought the soup delicious. And as we did not use the suggested sour cream as a topper, it is great nutritionally. It freezes well also.

[ellie_]

My beans were hard and undercooked even though I followed the directions as written, except I only used 1 tsp salt and eliminated both the carrot and oregano because I was out of both ingredients. For better results, I probably should have soaked the beans overnight instead of using the method suggested in the recipe.

[chia]

this does make a hearty soup. i halved the recipe and used a 3 qt crockpot. very easy to prepare with big bold flavor.