Quick and Easy Black Bean Soup
Oct 17, 2025
For me, any soup you can pull together quickly but still tastes amazing is a winner to me and this Black Bean Soup is one of those recipes.
The best part is that you can cook it on the stove top, in your slow cooker or in your Instant pot.
Isn’t that awesome?
A word about soup
I love soup.
To me, a good soup is like a hug in a bowl.
Soup is versatile and stretches your food budget.
You can eat this as a broth based soup the way I have the recipe written or thicken it up with a bit of cream cheese.
Many soups are adaptable like that.
How to make the best Black Bean Soup
I encourage people to gather their ingredients with any recipe before they start cooking.
You don’t want to be in the middle of cooking and realize you’re missing an ingredient you were sure you had.
Especially if you’re new to cooking, soups are a great place to start learning because leaving out an ingredient here or there is usually OK.
But it’s best to be prepared anyway.
Here are a some extra tips to make sure your soup is as yummy as possible.
- Assemble all of your ingredients in the order that you will use them.
- Peel and dice your onion.
- Mince the garlic.
- If possible, cook with someone and have them read the recipe to you as you cook because cooking is more fun with people and then you won’t skip any steps, not that I’ve ever done that (cough cough yes I have).
- If you’re cooking this on your own, read through the entire recipe before you start cooking. There are not that many steps, and I write recipes as if people are brand new cooking.
- Have fun. Cooking is a skill I believe anyone can learn and master with practice. Everyone who cooks well has messed up and thrown a meal in the garbage. If you mess up, there’s always the drive thru, but if you follow the steps here, you shouldn’t need that, at least tonight.
Let’s get cooking!
Black Bean Soup
Ingredients
Toppings and Garnishes- 1/2 cup carrots, diced
- 1/2 cup celery, diced
- 1/2 cup white or yellow onion, diced
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 cup salsa, your choice of heat level
- Taco seasoning mix to taste
- 2 (15 oz) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
- 8 oz diced ham
- 2-4 cups chicken stock, depending on how thick you want it
- 1/4 cup queso
Toppings and Garnishes (all optional)
- Salsa
- Cut limes
- 1 medium Haas avocado, sliced
- 2 tablespoons Mexican Crema or sour cream
- Tortilla strips
- Cilantro
- Low-fat cheese
- Oaxaca cheese, crumbled
Instructions
- Add your oil to a soup pot and set the heat just above medium or set your Instant pot on saute and heat until shimmering.
- If you're using a slow cooker, you can do this in a pan on the stove or skip the step entirely, but onions and garlic that are cooked like this provide a better flavor in my opinion.
- Add the onion, carrots and celery and cook until softened.
- Stir in the garlic and saute for one minute.
- At that point, pour the black beans, taco seasoning and ham in the soup pot and stir until incorporated.
- Add the salsa and chicken stock.
- If you're cooking on the stove, cook for 30 to 60 minutes on medium heat stirring occasionally.
- If you're using a slow cooker, cook on high for 2-4 hours, on low for 6-8 hours.
- When you're finished cooking the soup, to thicken, you can either pour everything into a blender to blend it smooth, add a couple of cups to a blender and pour it in with the rest to thicken it somewhat, use an immersion blender or add a block of cream cheese.
Notes
This recipe is great as is, but I also love it with fresh or canned corn.
Recommended Products
Leftover Hack to stretch your soup even further
Especially if you like thicker soup, you can add a can of refried beans to the soup mixture.
If you only have a cup or two of soup left, you can add refried bean and some cheddar or Oaxaca cheese to make a dip for tortilla chips.
Bon Appetit has a great article about Mexican cheese if you want to learn more.
Want to make this recipe? Save it to your favorite Pinterest board so you can always find it.
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