Today I am super excited to be participating in KIN Community's New Year, New You Collaboration!
Now for this collaboration dozens of YouTubers have gotten together to post a new video every
day through January with tips and tricks for making 2015 your best year yet. For my part
in this collaboration I'm sharing one of my very favorite recipes that is perfect for
#MeatlessMonday. Now this year I am really concentrating on trying to eat less meat,
and participating in #MeatlessMonday is a great way to do that. It's good for the environment,
it's good for your wallet and it's certainly great for your health. Today I'm going to
share with you my recipe for my delicious black bean soup, and the coolest part is it
all cooks up in your slow cooker so it's super simple, you can just set it and forget it.
For this beautiful soup I'm going to get started with some red onion some celery and some diced
red bell pepper. Now you have two options here you can either dump these veggies straight
into your slow cooker, that will totally work, or if you want to get a deeper flavor you
can saute them first on the stove, that's what I'm going to do today. So I've just got
some oil heating up in a frying pan and to that I'm going to add my veggies. To this
I'm going to be adding some minced garlic and some minced jalapeno. Now if you don't
like the heat you could totally leave the jalapeno out but I totally enjoy the heat
so I'm going to go for it. We're going to saute these for another 30 seconds and then
we are going to add our spices. Now I love to toast my spices before they go into the
slow cooker because the flavor gets a lot deeper and richer. So I am toasting up some
cumin some chili powder and a little bit of oregano. I'm going to heat these spices up
for another 30 seconds and then I'm just going to deglaze the pan using some vegetable stock.
I'm going to pour with whole mixture into my slow cooker and then I'm going to build
the rest of my black bean soup. For this recipe I'm using canned black beans, you could totally
use dried black beans as well but you'll want to remember to soak them overnight to make
sure they soften up enough. If you are using canned black beans you can just dump the entire
can straight into the slow cooker, you don't have to worry about rinsing or draining them.
So I'm adding my black beans to my slow cooker and to that I'm going to add some salsa. Now
you could totally use just plain diced tomatoes that will work just as well but I find that
adding salsa adds even more delicious flavor to the final soup. Super Good! And then the
last step is topping up your slow cooker with more vegetable broth. How amazing does this
look, and I can tell you the house smells incredible already. All I'm going to do is
give this a really good stir, put on the lid and then set my slow cooker for 6-8 hours.
Of course the longer this simmers the more delicious it's going to be. Once your soup
is ready you can use an immersion blender to puree it. Now if you don't have an immersion
blender like this don't sweat it at all you could totally use a traditional blender as
well but I will tell you, you need to be very very cautious when you are blending hot liquids.
So, watch this video for full directions on the safe way to blend hot soup. You just want
to make sure that this is in the soup before you start blending otherwise you can make
quite a big mess. Now I like to only puree it half way so it's got that smooth rich texture
but it also still has some chunks of black beans. That's the best way as far as I'm concerned!
Now that our soup is pureed we're just going to add one more delicious element. We're going
to squeeze the juice of two limes into our soup. This is going to give it a really refreshing
tangy flavor. I promise you that you do not want to skip this step. We're going to give
this a good stir and then it's time to serve our soup. I like topping mine with a little
bit of sour cream, some fresh avocado slices and some fresh cilantro. How amazing does
this look. Totally effortless to put together and the final result could not be more delicious.
I hope you'll give this tasty recipe a try and if you do be sure to tweet or instagram
me a photo because you know I love seeing what you're coming up with in your very own
kitchens. And of course be sure to check out all of the other awesome videos in this New
Year, New You collaboration, you will not regret i!