Hearty Bean and Quinoa Soup

I seem to start a lot of my posts with photos of onions. Which probably isn't good if you don't like 'em.

I made this soup for the first time last fall. I remember it fondly because it was the same day we climbed Bald Peak. I think I posted a photo of the soup around that time, and a link to the recipe, but I've made it at least 7-8 times since then, so I thought I'd do a proper recipe post.

This is the easiest soup ever. And healthy! And cheap! And tasty! How can you go wrong? The recipe can be found on Chatelaine, but I've adapted it slightly (tweaking it over the course of a couple of months will do that to a person) and so I'm posting how I do it.

As you can see above, you need a big ol' onion, chopped up. Throw it in a large pot with a tablespoon of oil and cook, stirring occasionally so they don't burn, for 6-7 minutes over medium heat. Meanwhile, chop up a couple of carrots...



...and mince two cloves of garlic:


You also need about 1/2 a cup of quinoa. If you don't know what quinoa is (or how it's pronounced), do check it out! It's very high in protein and it's healthy and delish.


Throw the carrots, garlic, and quinoa in with the onions and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring often.


Next, dump in a carton of vegetable broth and a cup of water. Seriously - you are pretty much done.


Let that simmer for about 20 minutes. Open a can of these:


Rinse them, and put them in the soup. Grab several handfuls of spinach (I like lots) and throw it in, too. No need to chop it up. It wilts to the perfect size.


Let it simmer for a few more minutes until heated through and the spinach is wilted. This is what my kid was doing while I was making soup: saying grace for his lunch at his makeshift table.

Sadly, it's not a favourite soup of either Charlie or my husband. Wait - why am I sad? MORE FOR ME!!!!

So, your soup is done. That's it. Nothing else needed. Just onions, garlic, carrots, quinoa, broth, beans, and spinach.

I mean, look at this stuff:



Oh, so good. SO GOOD.

Enjoy! Let's Do 52 post coming soon.