7-Ingredient Tuscan White Bean Soup

New year. 2020. A number that sounds like the future but feels like the present, which is always the trick — the future arrives disguised as today, and today looks exactly like yesterday, and the revolution is invisible. I drove my first load of the year on January 2 — frozen chicken to Lincoln, the same load I might have hauled on any day of any year, because the new year does not change the freight and the freight does not care about the calendar.

The kids went back to school Monday. The re-entry was rough — four children who have been sleeping until 9 a.m. and eating cookies for breakfast are now being asked to wake at 6:30 and eat cereal and learn things, and the injustice of it is written on their faces in the specific font of January: tired, pale, resentful. Tyler said school should not start until February. Justin said school should not start. Amber said nothing and went to school because Amber does what needs to be done without commentary, which is a trait she learned from me, and which I both admire and worry about, because doing what needs to be done without commentary is efficient but it is also silent, and silence can hide things.

Gayle has a cold. Not a bad cold — a Nebraska cold, which means she acknowledges it with a cough and denies it with words and treats it with tea and chicken soup and the specific stubbornness of a woman who believes illness is a character flaw. I brought her soup — my chicken noodle, the one with homemade egg noodles, because store-bought noodles are a shortcut I do not take when someone I love is sick. The homemade noodles are thick and uneven and taste like they were made by hand, which they were, and the hand that made them is the point.

I made chili for the family — the first chili of the new year, which I realize is not significant except that it is, because the chili is the constant, the through-line, the recipe that connects every week to every other week, and the first chili of 2020 tastes exactly like the last chili of 2019, which tastes exactly like the first chili of 2016, which tasted exactly like the chili I made in a truck cab in 1998. The chili does not change. I change around it. The chili stays.

The chicken noodle went to Gayle, made from scratch the way love requires — but the family still needed feeding, and January has a way of asking for something warm and unfussy and reliable. This 7-Ingredient Tuscan White Bean Soup is that kind of recipe: the pantry pulls together, the pot does the work, and what comes out is exactly the thing a cold week in a new year calls for. It’s not the chili — nothing is the chili — but it sits in the same category of food that holds a family steady when the calendar flips and the routine reasserts itself.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes, undrained
2 (15 oz) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
3 cups fresh baby spinach
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
Salt and black pepper to taste
Crusty bread, for serving (optional)

Instructions

Sauté the garlic. Heat olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the minced garlic and cook, stirring frequently, for about 1 to 2 minutes until fragrant. Do not let it brown.
Add tomatoes and seasoning. Pour in the diced tomatoes with their juices. Stir in the Italian seasoning and a pinch of salt and pepper. Let the mixture simmer for 3 to 4 minutes to begin building flavor.
Add beans and broth. Stir in the cannellini beans and chicken broth. Raise the heat to bring the soup to a gentle boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook uncovered for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Mash for body. Use the back of a spoon or a potato masher to lightly mash some of the beans directly in the pot. This thickens the broth and gives the soup a heartier, more rustic texture.
Wilt the spinach. Add the baby spinach and stir until wilted, about 2 minutes. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and serve hot, with crusty bread alongside for soaking up the broth.

Nutrition (per serving)

7-Ingredient Tuscan White Bean Soup — The Soup That Stays