Tuscan Soup
A perfect soup for a cold, rainy day (or any time you crave a bowl of delicious vegetable soup).
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 cup diced onion
- 1 cup diced carrots
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 6 cups Vegetable Broth or water see Recipe Notes
- 1 cup dry lentils, sorted and rinsed
- 1 15-ounce can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained
- ½ 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach, unthawed
- ½ tablespoon dried crushed rosemary
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and carrots, and cook until onions are soft and translucent. Stir in garlic, and cook 1 minute, stirring constantly so garlic doesn’t burn.
- Add water or broth, lentils, cannellini beans, tomatoes, spinach, rosemary, bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Heat to boiling, and then reduce heat. Simmer 20-25 minutes with lid tilted. Discard bay leaf before serving.
- Yield: 8 servings (serving size: about 1 ¼ cups)
Notes
- When preparing lentils, sort dried lentils by spreading them in a single layer on a tray to make it easier to sort out to discard the bad lentils. Look for discolored and misshapen beans and discard any unwanted debris. Place good lentils into a colander and rinse thoroughly using cold water.
- If you don’t have time to make your own vegetable broth, you can use a store-brought brand that’s Daniel Fast friendly. I recommend Kitchen Basics Unsalted Vegetable Stock.
This soup is sooo good! I used mushrooms instead of carrots and great northern beans instead of the suggested beans…Just. DELICIOUS. I’ve also tried your black and white chili soup and that was my favorite soup for a while hands down (SO GOOD) but after making this one tonight it’s got some tough competition. Thanks so much for this 🙂
You’re welcome! I’m so glad you enjoyed it. 🙂
I made this for the first time tonight. Only used lentils for the beans and fresh parsley to the herb mix. My family raved and everyone had seconds.
This will be become a rainy day special.
I’m so glad you liked it!
I’m on the Tuscan soup recipe and you mention corn muffins but I can’t find a recipe for them? Can you please help me? Thank you so much for all the tasty recipes
There should be a link on “Corn Muffins.” I’ll have to correct that! Sorry! Here’s the link: http://www.ultimatedanielfast.com/daniel-fast-corn-muffins/.
If I were to do this with brown rice instead, as someone else mentioned, would I need to cook them at all first or will they cook through in the 25 minute cook time? So excited to make this recipe!
Brown rice is a great addition to this soup. It usually takes 50-55 minutes to cook brown rice thoroughly, though. So you’ll either want to cook it ahead of time and add it in, or increase your total cooking time. Hope you enjoy the recipe!
Just dropping you a note to say how much we enjoy this recipe. 2nd time on the Daniel Fast, but we make this soup even when we’re not fasting. It’s such a great dish!
Thank you for your feedback! I’m glad you’re enjoying the recipes. I have several “keepers” that I use year-round as well! 🙂
recipe calls for 1/2 pk of FROZEN chopped Spinach, UN-thawed… I’m confused.
Yeah, that’s confusing. Just put the frozen spinach right in the soup. 🙂
Thanks for the great recipe. Can you provide nutrition information for this recipe. That would be most helpful.
Thank you,
Peg
Peg, I haven’t calculated the nutrition facts for all the recipes. Unfortunately, I didn’t think of doing that until after I’d posted 100+ recipes! You can use an online program to calculate it, though. I use the recipe feature in http://www.myfitnesspal.com, and it works well. Thanks for your comment!s well. Thanks for your comment!
I made this soup today – I’ve made it before and I really love it. Today to make a larger pot I added a larger can of diced tomatoes, I also added garbanzo beans as well as the other beans listed and I decided to add red & yellow peppers, a small zucchini chopped and celery. It looks yummy and very Italian! Can’t wait to share it with my PraiseMoves students today at Bible Study. Thank you, Kristen, I love all of your recipes. You should see my book, I have yellow post-its, and all kind of markers in several of the pages. It really helps me stick to the fast and come up with meals each day without feeling like we are eating the same things. I really enjoy eating this way. I hope I can carry many of your ideas beyond the 21 days through the end of the year. God as truly given us every good thing to eat without eating processed foods and all those extra sweets! (my weakness!)
Thank you so much for your comments. I’m glad the book has been a blessing to you, and I love that it’s filled with post-it notes! 🙂 May God bless you as you seek to honor Him in all you do, including your food choices!
I shared it with 8 students today and my husband and I both had a serving and we still have a 2 quart sauce pan filled – so I think we still have enough for 5 or 6 servings – it was very good with the added ingredients!
This soup is so good! I’ve made it twice. The first time as written, the second time with brown rice instead of lentils and kale instead of spinach. Sooooooo good!!!
Now I make this soup all the time, even when I’m not fasting. I’ve substituted so many things! Instead of lentils I’ve used brown rice, quinoa, barley and couscous – whatever grain I have on hand. Instead of spinach I’ve used kale (I like this the best) and collards. I’ve substituted northern beans and kidney beans for the cannelini beans. This is so versatile! When I’m not fasting I add a little chicken soup base sometimes. I love this soup!
Brittany, thanks for your comment and encouragement! I pray that the Lord will strengthen you and guide you as you seek Him during your fast. And, have fun experimenting with new recipes from the blog! 🙂
Kristin, I cooked both of these items last night, my first day on the fast, and I can’t tell you enough how much I enjoyed them! This will be my third time doing this fast, and I always do the same simple meals. Thanks to you and your helpful blog (which is the best daniel recipe site on the web), I look forward to making this round tastier and to trying out some of your other recipes. Thank you!
Aha…yes, it does! And yes; I’ve learned that sugar is, indeed, chemically addictive. This is one reason I so strongly recommend this type of eating plan for recovering bulimics. However, unlike some of the super-strick “diets”, it allows for fruits. I think this is good old common sense, as fruit is justa s God created it! Sure, they contain fructose, but fruit is hardly addictive the way table sugar is.
Thanks for clearing up the bread question, too. As I surfed around your site, I realized that the leavening was the issue. I think that would be a tough one for me (along with diet soda), but hey. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit.
Thanks for your e-mail, and I will write more tomorrow!
~Marie
Marie, thanks for your questions. No question is ever dumb, by the way. 🙂 Whole grains are allowed on the Daniel Fast, including whole grain flours. Leavened bread is restricted because it contains yeast, often sugar or honey, and preservatives. Unleavened bread, however, is allowed. The reason sugar is not allowed but fruits are is because sugar does not contain nutrients, nor does it provide any benefit to the body. It is also an addictive food. Fruit, however, is beneficial to the body, providing many helpful antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals.
The Daniel Fast guidelines might seem like a long list of legalistic dos and don’ts. However, they are intended to give people boundaries while fasting. The purpose of a partial fast is to deny ourselves certain foods as an act of worship to God as we call out to Him in prayer.
I hope that helps! Thanks for visiting my blog. I pray the Lord will bless you richly as you seek Him.
Hi,
These recipes definitely look good, and I will have to try them! I lack creativuty in the kitchen, so this is a great, healthy help. However, I hope this isn’t a dumb question…but if flour and bread are to be avoided on the fast, what makes cornmeal and muffins okay? Or date butter rather than just a simple teaspoon of sugar? I thought the whole idea behind it was to “simplify”? Regardless, they do look good, and I will certainly use some of these recipes.
Oh my gosh, these are so good. I didn’t use the date honey, and I probably under-salted them, but they are so tasty.
Oh, no! Salty muffins are not good! At least you enjoyed the soup. 🙂
Soup was awesome! Unfortunately my hand slipped when adding the salt to the corn muffins and they came out way to salty. I also threw some water in the recipe to improvise on the instructions so that might have had a part in my less then stellar outcome with them. Even with those to blunders they were still pretty good.
Arlene, I apologize for the typo! I’m actually in the process of going through all of my recipes to make sure everything is correct. How did the soup and muffins come out last night?
I tried to make the corn muffins but I am stumped. The instructions say to add water but there is no measurement listed in the ingredients. Also, how long do you need to bake them if they are normal sized muffins. Cooking the soup today and am winging the muffins…sort of.
Mary Beth, thanks for the nutritional information and for your comments. I pray that the Lord will continue to strengthen you as you seek Him! 🙂
This soup is delicious! For me, it came out to 10 cups at 156 calories each. Yummy! Kristen, this blog has really helped me stay on the fast. Great recipes and information. Thanks.
Donna, thanks for your comment and encouragement. All glory to God because He is the One who is helping me!
I’m glad you are doing the fast. I am praying for you.
Tonight is the first night I have thoroughly looked at this blog. Kristen, this is amazing. I believe I can handle this D fast now that I know what I can and cannot have! I plan to join u soon! Thank you for doing this. I’m very impressed 🙂 Donna
Thanks, Billie Jo, for your comment. Tuscan Soup is one of my favorite soup recipes, by the way. 🙂 I pray that the recipes on this blog will help you and serve as an encouragement to you.
As far as the serving sizes, I’m not exactly sure what you mean. Are you asking if part of the Daniel Fast is to have a certain number of servings or calories, then no it doesn’t. If you are asking about the # of servings, this soup makes, it should be 6-8 servings of 1-1 1/2 cups each. I need to make it again so I can add the # of servings.
I pray that the Lord will richly bless you as you seek Him.
this is the first meal, on our fast, it looked very good, are there serving sizes that we need to follow? thank you for you blog, i have been all over ther internet, looking for help, yours is the most informative. thank you. billie jo
Susan, I’m glad you liked it! Have you tried the muffins yet? 🙂 Thanks for your comment. Keep ’em coming!
I made the soup tonight. What an awesome dish. I was worried it wouldn’t leave me satisfied, but it did! A very hearty soup with an awesome flavor! From Susan Billings
You’re so funny! 🙂
Oh my gosh, Kristen. You’re making me want to go on a Daniel Fast just to use these recipes. The soup and corn muffins look amazing.