Just wanted to clarify- with the 2 optional ingredients, do not leave them both out. You should choose one or the other of them. If you choose the chili powder (add it right before the broth) the flavor is kind of reminiscent of chili, if you leave out the chili powder and use the maple syrup instead, you get my 8 year old daughter's favorite soup in the world.;-) Of course, you may substitute chicken broth for the vegetable broth, and it still tastes wonderful, but obviously it is no longer vegetarian. Enjoy!
YUM!! My family absolutely loved this recipe, even my children. I had to substitute one of the cans of red beans for white beans and it still came out just great. I added in the maple syrup and 1 tbls of the chili powder. I also added in 4 servings of whole grain brown rice while simmering to add more "bulk" to the soup. We grated cheddar cheese over the tops of our bowls and let it melt....soooo good! This recipe made a huge pot that will feed my family of 4 for 2 meals, and cost less than $5!! Thanks for sharing this one!
awesome! I'm not sure why even though I chose to make this recipe I wasn't that thrilled about it while making it. GREAT flavor! I halved the recipe (dummy me forgot to get 2 cans of each bean. Next time I'll go un-canned and do dryed beans fresh tomatoes etc.
Great used 1/2 can of Rotel tomatoes to add extra flavor to the Chili powder version. Also added Barley for a healthy grain. Kids liked it too because they couldn't see any tomatoes!
I made the maple syrup version and I have to agree with other reviewers that said it was bland. However it wasn't so bland that I wouldn't have eaten it as it was so I don't think this is a bad recipe. It thickened up really nicely. For my tastes though I added some curry - which made it AWESOME. (But then I love curry!) Next time I make it I'll either try the chili powder version or skip the syrup altogether and just use curry. Thanks for the recipe!
This is delicious! Was looking for a recipe that would let me use up a lot of cans of beans and this fit the bill perfectly. I didn't have any tomatoes so I left them out. I also left out the olive oil. I used chicken broth instead of vegetable broth and frozen sweet corn instead of canned. The rest of the recipe I followed as written. I love adding some of the beans as puree - gives the soup a nice thickness.
I made this for a chuch function last night but left out the maple syrup. It was HUGE hit!
I made this with the maple syrup... it was ok but nothing to write home about. Needs a little more flavor. I'll have to play with it to make it just right but my kids had a hard time eating it.
This was the blandest soup I have ever made. Not sure I can even call this a "base" soup. I followed the directions exactly then went back to double check that I didn't make an error. I made the maple syrup version it didn't have any flavor besides the beans so I added salt and a general no salt seasoning and red pepper flakes. It helped but it still wasn't good. I noticed most of the good reviews were for the version using the chili powder.
