Best Greek bean soups
Beans, pulses and legumes are staples in Greek cooking and they are often used to make hearty, delicious and nutritious soups. Here are the Greek bean soup recipes you must try!
Growing up in a Greek home, we were raised in the Orthodox Christian faith. That meant that a significant part of the year we were fasting, or eating lenten (nistisima) foods. These were dishes that contained no dairy, no eggs and no meat. Naturally, my parents turned to bean based dishes because they were not only filling, but also healthy and delicious.
There are many great Greek bean soups that exemplify all that is wonderful about Greek cooking. Simple, real ingredients, prepared with care. Nothing fancy required, simply trusting the simple ingredients and knowing that they will come together to prepare a soup that everyone will love. Here are my favourite Greek bean soups.
Cooking tips for Greek bean soups
Plan ahead
Many of these recipes call for dried beans, many of which should be soaked for at least 8 – 12 hours or overnight. Read the recipe ahead of time and plan for soaking. In a pinch, you can use canned beans of course.
If using canned, rinse well
One of the problems with using canned beans is that they are often pretty high in sodium. A good way to minimize the amount of salt is to rinse your beans well.
These beans soups are freezer-friendly!
When I make any of these Greek soups, I often double, or triple the recipe. These recipes all freeze really well. They are perfect to have on hand when you need a quick and nutritious meal idea!
My favourite Greek beans soup recipes
Fasolatha, Greek white bean soup (Φασολάδα)
Fasolatha (sometimes spelled fasolada) is often considered the national food of Greece. Seriously! Sure other dishes like Moussaka or Pastitsio may seem like more obvious choices, but I would argue that this simple bean soup deserves that title. Made with white kidney beans, good olive oil, simple vegetables and flavoured with lemon juice, this is a soup that is more than the sum of its parts!
My parents taught me to thicken this soup with a bit of flour. This gives the soup broth a creamy texture that I love. If you want to keep the soup gluten-free however you can simply omit the flour. Your fasolatha will still be delicious. As for the lemon, don’t be shy! Fresh lemon juice, and plenty of it, really enhances this soup. You can adjust the amount of lemon juice to your taste of course!
Fakes (Lentil soup)
Growing up, this was a regular Friday supper. By then the groceries were almost done, to be replenished on Saturday morning. No worries though. So long as we had dried lentils (which we always did), some onion, celery and carrots and my parents’ homemade tomato sauce, we were able to enjoy this classic Greek lentil soup. Naturally vegan, fakes is also the perfect lenten food, and since Fridays were usually fasting days, Fakes Fridays was actually a thing!
I love cooking with lentils because compared to other dried beans they require little to no prep work. Technically speaking you do not need to soak, nor pre-boil your lentils before making this soup. Lentils are also incredibly nutritious, and this recipe is easily adaptable. You haven’t made my parents’ homemade tomato sauce? No worries, just use a good quality passata. The recipe calls for a yellow onion but all you have is a red onion? No problem, use that! You get the picture. The recipe can easily be adjusted.
Oh…and one more thing! When you make fakes, try adding a bit of red wine vinegar to your bowl right before serving. Delish! and a very Greek thing to do!
Fasolatha with tomato
This soup is a very close cousin (maybe even sibling) to the fasolatha recipe which is served with a lemon flavoured broth. Here the soup is prepared with the addition of tomato sauce or tomato puree, to give it a twist of flavour (and colour of course). I can’t decide which fasolatha I prefer – the one with lemon or this one with tomato. Fortunately, I don’t have to decide! I can have both!
Greek Chickpea soup, Revithosoupa
In Greek chickpeas are called revithia, and this revithosoupa is the perfect way to highlight these amazing beans. This hearty and rustic vegan Greek chickpea soup is made with a few simple ingredients. Chickpeas, carrots, celery, onion, leeks, garlic, olive oil and some herbs and spices combine to make this traditional and easy Greek recipe.
Although I typically prefer to use dried beans, the reality is that sometimes canned beans are just so much easier! That is definitely the case with this soup. I actually find that this soup is perfect with canned chickpeas and I often whip this up in no time during busy weeknights.
Mung bean soup (Psilofasola or rovitsa)
Did you know that Greeks cook with mung beans?! It’s true! This soup, called psilofasola or rovitsa in Greek is my dad’s favourite, partially because he remembers having it as a child in his horio (village). I absolutely love this soup. First of all, cooking with mung beans is great. They are an adorable bean! and like lentils, they technically don’t need to be pre-soaked or pre-boiled (I tend to do this regardless because I find them easier to digest that way, but you don’t have to).
The ingredients for this soup are few and simple. Mung beans, celery, Greek olive oil, onion, lemon juice, oregano and a bit of salt. That’s it! This truly is a rustic soup and you will be surprised by how delicious it is. Serve it with some great bread and enjoy!
Borlotti bean soup
I have the best memories of sitting with my parents and aunts and uncles after a trip to the Farmer’s Market and returning with a huge sac, or two, of borlotti beans still in their pod. We would sit for hours, removing the beans from the pods and then preparing them to be frozen to carry us through the winter. My parents would take these pretty beans and use them to prepare the simplest, perfect for cold weather, borlotti bean soup.
Borlotti beans (also called romano beans or cranberry beans) are a creamy, nutritious and delicious bean that is pretty too! They are a light beige colour and are speckled with red or dark brown. Unfortunately when cooked, they lose their speckled beauty and turn into a uniform light brown colour. Still, they worthy of admiration, and so is this soup!
Black-eyed pea soup with kale
This is a gorgeous and nutrition packed soup that offers a kick of heat! I like to make this soup a bit spicy, by adding dried chili peppers. But the real star here are the black-eyed peas, popular in Greek cooking and often combined with greens. In this soup, kale is added to the tomato-based broth and the result is a soup full of flavour and amazing textures!
There are many varieties of black-eyed peas available throughout the world. In this recipe I used the most common commercial variety which is the California Black-eye. If you happen to come across another variety of black-eyed pea, give it a try! You can also try to make this soup with swiss chard or spinach instead of kale, or even a combination of different greens.
Cabbage and bean soup recipe
The flavours in this vegetable soup are truly wonderful. The cabbage is sweet, the broth is rich and flavourful from the spices and tomato, and the beans are hearty. It is really a great way to enjoy a nutritious and delicious dinner. It is also a pretty economical meal to feed your family. Cabbage tends to be an more inexpensive vegetable compared to others, and beans are known for being a cost-efficient protein source compared to animal protein.
The recipe calls for white beans, and those can be either white kidney beans or navy beans. However, you can use something else like canned chickpeas, or even red kidney beans. I like the more delicate flavour of the white beans, but honestly, this is your soup, so make it as you like it!