Remember me telling you the amount of sodium in a teaspoon of salt? 2325 mg. And the recommended intake per day? <1500 mg. Wanna take a wild guess at the sodium in a half-cup serving of my favorite condensed soup? Are you sitting down? 860 mg. Over half my recommended daily intake in a half-cup of soup. Forget that.
6. Now, put the veg, drained beans, lo-so chicken broth, water, instant broth powder, and bay leaves together in a stock pot and simmer over low heat for a couple of hours.
Now, don't get me wrong. I grew up eating Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup at least once a week. Yep. My fave cake is one you've never heard of. Same with my fave soup. In fact, I still love Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup, but I cannot eat it anymore, at least not with a clear conscience. 860 mg. Half-cup serving. Insane.
D never did like BwB Soup, so this recipe really has nothing to do with him. It's all about me, baby! I do not have sodium-sensitive high blood pressure, so maybe you think I shouldn't worry about it. Maybe you're right. But I do worry about it, so I went on the hunt for a better-for-you version. Or at least something I could turn into a better-for-you version.
You'll notice I do not have a step-by-step photo record of this soup's preparation. That's because I had the "brilliant" notion of trying to wedge in its creation between an evening meeting and a promised swimmin'-hole visit for my kids and their friends. Because of my complete inability to manage time effectively, dear old D had to step up and do the middle steps while I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off. As you can see, I do have a nice shot of all the kids at the swimmin' hole, but that doesn't do much to prove that I (we) actually did cook this soup. You'll have to take my word for it.
Better-for-You Bean with Bacon Soup
Original Knock-off Soup (which I, in turn, knocked off to make even healthier)
Ingredients:
1 small bag of dried Great Northern Beans, prepared according to the instructions, except that you will add NO SALT when cooking them.
[I soak according to bag instructions and then cook them in my pressure cooker. Once you've soaked them, cooking beans in the pressure cooker takes 2 minutes. No joke. Instructions in my pressure cooker recipe book for Great Northern Beans: "Cook 1-2 minutes at high pressure. Remove from heat. Allow pressure to fall of its own accord." Boom, baby! I'm telling you: you need a pressure cooker.]
REAL bacon!! [~6 slices]
2-3 carrots, diced finely
2-3 celery stalks, diced finely
1 medium onion, diced finely
4 c lo-so chicken broth
4 c water
2 packets of Herb Ox no-so instant chicken broth powder [more on this, below]
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp seasoning salt
1/2 a small can of tomato paste
1. Eight hours before you plan to cook the soup, start your beans soaking in some cool water. I use a glass Corningware bowl, making sure the beans are about 2" below the surface of the water. That's because the beans will swell--the entire point of soaking them, actually.
2. Toward the end of the soaking time, start prepping the other ingredients, as follows:
3. Fry up your bacon until it is crispy. You must fry it in a saute pan/skillet and NOT in the microwave. I know, I know! I know what you are thinking, "If you really want to be heart-healthier and still use bacon, you should be using turkey bacon. You should be cooking it in the microwave oven!" Shhh! Calm down. I told you this is better-for-you, not good-for-you. Moving on.
4. Remove your delightful and crispy bacon and set it aside to DRAIN on a paper towel. There! Ya happy now? We are draining the bacon. Now, dump MOST, but not ALL of the bacon fat out of the pan. You need to leave about a tablespoon or so.
5. Dump the carrots, celery, and onion into the pan and fry gently over medium low heat in the fat until they are tender. This will take a while, and will smell ah-may-zing. Remember, gently...gently. You do not want everything to be browned and crispy. Just soft, glistening and flavorful.
6. Now, put the veg, drained beans, lo-so chicken broth, water, instant broth powder, and bay leaves together in a stock pot and simmer over low heat for a couple of hours.
I use Herb Ox Sodium Free Instant Broth and Seasoning packets for a couple of reasons. 1) it is the only no-so broth/bouillon base I can find in our area, and 2) one packet makes one cup of broth, which is nice b/c then I don't have to store unused broth and make sure to use it before it spoils (which, to be honest, is hardly ever a problem, anyway)
7. If you used a pressure cooker, some of your beans were probably mushy before you ever added them to the soup. They will make your soup very thick and rich. If you didn't use a pressure cooker, you'll want to mash up some of the beans after the soup has cooked. You can use an immersion blender, or just dip out a few cups of soup, mash the beans by any method that seems feasible, and return the mashed up beans to the soup.
8. You are in the home stretch, now! Chop the crispy bacon into tiny bits and add it, the tomato paste, and the salts to your soup, to taste. This is the salty part!
Originally, I had not planned to add any salt to my better-for-you recipe. But the soup tasted like wallpaper paste to me, so I caved and added some salt. Even so, my soup has a LOT less salt in it than the Campbell's version (which is delicious, but still...800+ mg sodium per half cup serving?!)
9. Cook everything a little longer, maybe 30 minutes or so, making sure the tomato paste breaks up and gives the soup its characteristic orange-y color. I usually sprinkle some fresh or dried parsley over my bowl of BwB soup b/c that's what my mom always did. Feel free to do the same. Serve and savor. Makes just under a gallon of soup.
