Fasolatha soup

I think this weather may be perfect to share one of my mom’s yummy Greek soup recipes. This one is for Fasolatha, which is a very well-known and loved soup. It’s full of veggies, beans and flavour and is really, really delicious, not to mention a cinch to make.

So I won’t ramble on about how this soup brings back childhood memories of me running through a field of sheep and rainbows, instead I’ll just get straight to the recipe. Enjoy!

Here’s another one of my mom’s recipes for Traditional Greek Meatball Soup.

For more of my recipes, savoury and sweet you can click here 🙂

INGREDIENTS for Fasolatha soup:

– Olive oil and butter for frying
– 1/2 a chopped medium-sized onion
– 1 cup chopped carrots – cubes
– 1 cup chopped celery – cubes
– 1 cup chopped green (string) beans
– 1 cup chopped butternut – cubes
– 1 cup chopped up medium-sized potato – cubes
– 4 cups or 1 litre of water – *you can add a little more if you want a bit more broth
– 2 and a half stock cubes – I used chicken stock cubes
– 1.5 teaspoons tomato puree
– 4 x tins of butter beans – drained of all their liquid
– 1 tablespoon butter
– 1 lemon

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large pot with some olive oil and butter in it, fry the chopped up onion over a med-high heat until soft.

2. Add all the chopped up vegetables, so the carrots, green beans, celery, butternut & potato and fry them for a few minutes so they sweat for a bit. Season to taste with salt & pepper.

3. Add 1 litre of water, the 2 & half stock cubes and your tomato puree. Give it a good stir. Then leave the soup to boil until the vegetables are cooked. Timing depends on how big or small you have chopped up your vegetables, they are ready when they are soft.

4. When the veggies are cooked through you can add all the (drained) butter beans. Let the soup gently boil for about 15 minutes or so on a medium heat.

5. Once done add a tablespoon of butter to add some gloss, give it a stir & serve with some fresh bread and a squeeze of lemon (optional, I like it this way). My dad eats this soup with chopped up onion and olives on the side, which he says is delicious.