Marcella Hazan's White Bean Soup with Garlic and Parsley

Excellent. I made this from dried beans, using Rancho Gordo’s Marcella beans and following their instructions for preparing dried beans, including additional aromatics. The soup will absorb, and needs, significantly more liquid than stated in the recipe. I used high-quality chicken bone broth.

I've been making this soup since I recieved my first Marcella Hazan cookbook in 1993 and to me, this is the epitome of soulful comfort food. The beauty is in its simplicity, good beans, fresh bright parsley and rich olive oil. I either eat this as is or I toss in some cooked pasta and sautéed broccoli rabe for a heartier main course. I'm making this tonight with Rancho Gordos.

I survive the cold months with recipes like this. So quick to whip up, so light on the wallet, and so easy to riff on. I added a squeeze of lemon juice and a grating of parm at the end and it was perfection.

This recipe was delicious and, as other reviewers have reintegrated, you must use the best quality ingredients. I used the Rancho Gordo Marcella beans (I mean, they are named after the iconic chef), olive oil from my trip to Spain, fresh garlic, and I opted for fresh rosemary from my garden since I didn’t have fresh parsley. I added extra homemade chicken stock to make it a little brothier and included a Parmesan rind too. I served it with some fresh bread rubbed with olive oil and toasted, then rubbed with a garlic clove. My family tore it up and asked for it to be made again soon.

This did not really feel like a soup, not enough broth for me.
The flavour was wonderful. I served it over toasted bread . It felt like beans on toast though.
Didn't want to eat it that way again so I made another soup with spinach ,cherry tomatoes and these white beans. It was delicious!

I was so hopeful about this recipe, and made it with high-quality ingredients and exactly as instructed. Alas, we were underwhelmed. The flavors were mild and the texture pasty. We will try to rescue the rest by serving it over vegetables, thinning it out, maybe adding tomatoes or another acidic component, but I don’t think we’ll make this preparation again.

I live in Sarasota Florida and had the incredible pleasure of getting to know the amazing Marcella. Our first meeting was at a retail women’s clothing biz I managed and then I happened to have shifted career paths into the spice shop arena. When she walked through that door in all her barely five foot stature, I felt her presence as though a giant had just entered and remember my hand shaking with excitement as I carefully measured and weighed out some dry Greek oregano for a client I was assisting. I was blessed with our second meeting there which became the beginning point of a truly joyful and special friendship. She became my own special “regular”...if you can apply this label to such an iconographic character...and we spent many hours over the course of a year discussing the nuances and power of herbs and spices. She even “reprimanded” me about our mislabeling of pinoli nuts which were in reality a pine nut but not of the piñon tree...hence a lesser quality imposter. The following week, I was gifted a small container of her very own stash of the real deal. I will admit here that the cherished nuts never made it into a pesto or such though we discussed the many ways to riff on that classic. No. I still have that prized jar in a special place in my kitchen as my own little remembrance of her. Now that she has passed, I look to it daily as I cook and am fortified with her great wisdom to keep it simple. Keep it true. A mantra that goes far beyond the tiny walls of my kitchen.
Just thought to share....

Loved this recipe! I drizzled a bit of chili crisp on top for an added kick and it was to delicious for words.

In step two, how can you simmer if you haven’t added any liquid yet?

Love this. Just wanted to pass on a couple of tips. If you're using canned beans (dried ARE better but canned are ok and SUCH a great time saver for meals in a hurry) rinse them a couple of times before using. The garlic needs to be JUST coloured, it burns almost instantly and will be super bitter. For me the easiest way not to burn it is to heat the oil, add the garlic then add the beans immediately. Also as others have said use good quality ingredients.

I made this one time and used dried beans. I think if serving with a flavorful meat, it is great as is. But I could somewhat see how some would find this “bland”, and I am not one to heavily salt food. I wasn’t sure if I should salt the water when cooking the dried beans, so I did not, to be on the safe side. But I think next time, I will salt the water. But this is a very simple and versatile dish as I would make it again,

Can this be frozen?

I made this exactly as detailed, except I used dried parsley and probably slightly over cooked the garlic. This is delicious and super easy. I used water for my liquid and didn’t have to add additional seasoning after the first salt and pepper input. This is a great recipe for using a handheld blender too.

I’m not sure where the reviewers below are getting oil slicks and sludge. The oil was fully absorbed by the beans and the soup is the color of the main ingredient.

No need to say anything negative about the chef or receipe...just don’t post! Why do people feel it is okay to be rude?

I am trying this for meatless Monday .... it sounds yummy! I am using Red Mill dried beans and homemade broth...can’t wait.

This is true simplicity at its best! Take your time with this soup and add what you like!! Kale, rosemary or not. I agree with the other comment posted use the best ingredients you can find!! 😊 Enjoy

So I did this and added cooked chicken because I didn’t have 6 cups of beans - only 4 - quite tasty, added onion powder at the end because something was missing but I liked it a lot!

After having read the instructions three times, I see no mention of when to add the broth (I could just be having a day full of brain glitches). I assume, after sautéing the garlic, you add the beans and broth together to simmer. Does this make sense? ☺️

I made this and my family just loved it. It was so quick and perfect for a rainy afternoon. I used canned beans and rinsed them. It did come out thicker than the picture, so I add some water at the end, and we ate it with a knife and fork and thoroughly enjoyed it. I also added some chopped bacon as we had it left over from breakfast. I look forward to making this one again!

This is the third Marcella Hazen recipe I have made and I have not liked any of them. Guess I am not a Marcella fan. The other two were bolognese sauce and the tomato sauce. Tossed all of them after a few tastes.

Made this again recently with a few tweaks that really worked out great! I cooked my beans in a vegetable broth (i like the better than bullion brand for store bought) and then while the beans were cooking i simmered a parmesan rind in water to make a fantastic parmesan broth which i used as the liquid for the soup (i adjusted the salt to taste since the parm added a little too) after simmering the rind can either be discarded or become a cook's snack :) This combo added a lot more flavor to this simple easy soup and I'll definitely make it this way in the future too!

An unexpectedly difficult time finding dry cannellini beans led to purchasing entirely too many when I finally did find them in bulk - it's hard to judge how much is pouring into the brown paper sack when you're only 5'2" and have to stand on tiptoe just to barely reach the container. But I digress... I ended up using 6 cups of cooked beans and followed the recipe as written except for adding some onion and using 2 cups of stock (half chicken/half beef). Absolutely delicious! So delicious, in fact, that I made another pot with the leftover beans.

I think this recipe needs a bit more explanation.

Italians (or maybe just Tuscans) will slowly simmer cannellini beans in water for hours with just salt, whole sage leaves, and a crushed clove of garlic or two and then serve either drained as a side to a roast or with olive oil as soup for a first course. It's an elegant dish. I've served beans cooked this way at guest dinners to raves, and it's well worth it to find and follow a traditional recipe. But everything has to be just so.

This recipe from Hazan (different in a number of respects that are easy to miss) is actually similar in its demands.. Not draining the beans if they're canned will likely ruin the dish. So will using a brand of canned beans with a muddled taste. Differences again as others have said between cooking your own beans and using canned, as well as the handling of the garlic or selection of the olive oil. While both the adaptation and the recipe say "cannellini or other white beans," there really are no "other white beans" that have the texture and sweetness of cannellini (save maybe "the Marcella" mentioned below), so you can substitute, but the results will be different. I personally would only use water, but can see how others would want to use broth, and if broth is used, the flavor will again vary widely.

In other words, this is indeed a very simple recipe. But it has its own parameters that are rooted in the selection and quality of the ingredients. Most simply, this particular recipe is really all about the taste and quality of the beans and oil that go into it, and I can well imagine wildly different results while seemingly following this recipe to a T. This doesn't make it a bad recipe. But it's an unusual recipe for Americans, and I think the role of ingredient selection needs to be pointed out.

This looked like way too much oil for me, i cut it to 2TB for cooking and dribbled a bit on top of each bowl. This is infinitely better with excellent homemade broth and from scratch beans.
I added chopped fresh basil to the bowl when serving since it tasted a bit plain and that did the trick!

Sorry, this just didn't work for me. I ate about half a serving and couldn't finish it. I agree with Susanna, this is just a beige sludge and cries out for more flavor like herbs and more garlic. I ended up dumping it into the garbage disposal as I didn't think I could reheat, add rosemary, etc., and cook the beans much longer without it turning into a slush.

Rancho Gordo heirloom beans in Napa California sells a white bean called the Marcella in honor of the late Ms. Hazan which is a perfect choice for this recipe. I recommend the book Heirloom Beans by Steve Sando for great recipes and techniques for cooking beans.

love the bowl in the pic - any idea where it's from?

Marcella's genius is in the simplicity of many of her recipes. I love this one (and many others) because I can create something wonderful out of just a few ingredients. I think that's pretty special.

I added more beef stock to this and the thinner soup worked much better for us (I didn't make the first half though so not sure what happened and want to test again anyway). I finished it off by frying up some canned butter beans in garlic and butter and adding them to the puréed soup. Served with toast and it was great for a blustery evening.

This should not be categorized as a soup. Although quite tasty, I would call it a big bowl of beans or a bean stew. Made it as a side to go with sandwiches, but it is way to filling to be considered a "side".

Thank you for the post. I had so much fun making a batch yesterday. Substituted barlotti beans and used an oven method (2 cups dry beans, 6 cups water, 1 tsp. salt, baked at 350 for about 2 hours) to cook the beans, then drained and made the genius beans! I thought they were wonderful as is but then made it into our evening meal by adding more water to make it soupier and ladled it over bowls of leftovers (noodles, string beans and zucchini with Parmesan) for "instant" pasta fagioli. He loved it!

I made this as written tonight and it is delicious - but more thick bean stew than soup. I had some excellent chicken stock and cooked the beans earlier in the day after brining and think it is wonderful. Will dilute the leftovers with more stock for soups era meal later in the week.

I found another version of this same Marcella recipe on Food & Wine online. Identical, except it uses 2 cups of cooked beans, not 6 cups. That might explain Susanna's experience! It also says you can feel free to add more broth, although it is meant to be very bean-centric.

Once again you've messed up the formatting of the recipe when it's printed out. Underlined stuff, and "check that the measuremt" (sic) inserted between the quantity of an ingredient and the ingredient's name. Most annoying of all, hidden links to the Amazon book listing buried under everything, which pops up when I try to clean it up.

Wow. This was the most disappointing recipe I've made in as long as I can remember. Basically just a bowl of beige sludge. I generally love Hazan, but next time I want a bean soup I'll go back to my usual aromatics and herbs, and I won't add so much good olive oil that the soup is like eating an oil slick.

When should the broth be added?