Quick Pinto Bean Soup with Pickled Onions for Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays

I just can't seem to get back on my well-thought-out soup making groove lately. This was a challenging week for me for reasons not worth going into and Saturday I went to the store with no inspiration to shop with and no desire to be there. Sunday I was challenged with even getting started in the kitchen until after 3:00 PM so I needed something quick. I went to the pantry and looked at my cans of beans and settled on a Quick Pinto Bean Soup inspired by a Mark Bittman article.

Bean Soups can sometimes lack the zip of acidity, so I decided to use a red onion in my veggie drawer and make a lime-pickled onion recipe from Rick Bayless to top the soup. I first made it a couple of years ago to top his mushroom tacos and I make them often ever since.

Mixed Bean Soup or Stew 
Adapted from MarkBittman.com
(Makes 2-3 Servings)

In a couple tablespoons of olive oil, cook a diced onion, carrot, and celery stalk until the vegetables soften, then add about four cups of precooked or canned beans (navy beans, cannellini beans, black beans, pinto beans, black-eyed peas, kidney beans, or chickpeas) with some of their liquid, a couple cups of water or stock, two bay leaves, and a sprig of fresh thyme. Bring to a boil and cook until the flavors blend and the beans are warmed through; add more liquid to achieve the consistency you like. Season with salt and pepper, remove the bay leaves and thyme sprig, and serve.

What I did: cooked a diced onion until softened and added two cans of low-sodium pinto beans and their liquid, one can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes and their juices, one can of mild diced green chili and about 1/2 tsp each of cumin, coriander, celery seed, dried oregano, and Aleppo pepper, and two cups of vegetable stock. Brought soup to a boil and cooked it about 20 minutes until the flavors blended. I blended about two ladles of the soup in the blender and added it back to the pot, seasoning with salt, pepper and lime juice to taste. Served with Fritos.

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Pickled Red Onions
Recipe from From RickBayless.com
(Makes about 1 cup) 

1 small red onion, peeled and cut in half
1/2 cups fresh lime juice
salt

With a knife or food processor, thinly slice the onions. Scoop into a non-reactive bowl. 

Pour boiling water over them, count to 10, then immediately pour the onions into a strainer. Shake off all the water, pour the onions back into the bowl, pour on the lime juice and stir in the 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. 

Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. The onions will last for a week or more in the refrigerator.

Notes/Results: Just simple and good, a basic bean soup but lots of flavor from he spices and lime juice. You could of course add other veggies, a protein, or anything else you like to the soup or the top of the soup--if my avocado was ripe it would go on top. Even stirring in some rice would be good. I would make it again.

I am sharing these recipe for Mark Bittman's bean soup and Rick Balyless's pickled onions at I Heart Cooking Clubs where it is Taco Night! this week. The onions are excellent on tacos!

Let's have a look in the Souper Sundays kitchen!

Shaheen from Allotment2Kitchen shared these sandwich-ish Pea, Feta and Mint Crescents, saying, "These Turkish pastries were made from scratch. The golden puffy pasty was made with some yogurt and filled with  pea, feta and mint combination. Taste of Summer indeed and it made for a lovely light lunch. I tried to find a link to the original recipe on the website to share with you, but it's not there."  

Tina of Squirrel Head Manor brought Broccoli and cheese Soup with Outback Croutons and said, "I made a broccoli and cheese soup for lunch this past week. My feeling is it's never too hot for soup. I don't want to eat it outside, on the patio in this weather, but a hearty bowl of veggie goodness is a great lunch anytime. ... There was a bit of Outback bread leftover from last week's baking and I thought it would make remarkable toasted croutons for the soup."

Debra of Eliot's Eats made tasty Grilled Banh Mi Sandwiches with Pickled Veggies, saying, "Every so often, The Hubs will put out a special request, do all the shopping and pitch in with the cooking. Most of these requests involve grilling. The most recent suggestion for dinner was a Banh Mi sandwich, but as mentioned above, he wanted to grill it.  I did some research and we came up with this recipe."

Thank you to everyone who joined in! 

(If you aren't familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here.
If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's Souper Sunday's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you. Also please see below for what to do on your blog post that you link up to Souper Sundays in order to be included in the weekly round-up.

and 

On your entry post (on your blog):

• Mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and add a link back to this post. (Not to be a pain but it's polite and only fair to link back to events you link up at--so if you link a post up here without linking back to this post or my blog on your post, it will be removed.)
• You are welcome to add the Souper Sundays logo to your post and/or blog (completely optional).

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Have a happy, healthy week and be well!