This Lima Bean Soup recipe is warm and comforting when it’s cold outside! Made with dry lima beans, but you can use canned if you prefer, plus vegetables such as carrots, celery, and leeks. Frugal & delicious!
Lima Bean Soup is an excellent way to feed the family. Our family has been making and enjoying this soup for many years now. Not only is it delicious, but it’s also comforting and frugal. One of the things I love about having soup for dinner is that it’s a one-pot meal. A bowl of this soup and some cornbread or a slice of crusty bread and your meal is complete!
This soup is made with the common ingredients of many soups — such as carrots and celery — but rather than onions, this recipe uses leeks. They are more mellow than onions and add an excellent flavor to the soup. This recipe also uses dry lima beans, which helps to keep this recipe inexpensive.
How to Soak Dry Lima Beans
If you are about to cook this fresh Lima Bean Soup, you may be wondering how you cook those dry beans!
First, go through the beans and remove any that are discolored or look a little funky. Then take the beans and rinse them very well. The next step is to decide how you will take your beans from hard and dry to tender and delicious!
When it comes to cooking your lima beans, there are two important processes. The first one is soaking your limas in water and the second is the actual cooking process. However, while these processes are simple, there are a few different ways you can go about doing each of them.
Option #1: Quick Soaking Lima Beans
For this Lima Bean Soup recipe, we recommend the quick soaking method. This method involves heating up the beans and then letting them soak in the hot water. It’s a great method if you don’t have time to soak overnight. And, this method is perfect for people like me who didn’t plan ahead for soaking overnight! LOL
To use the quick soaking method, place your 1 pound of lima beans in a large pot with 10 cups of water. Bring the water to a boil and boil the lima beans for 5-10 minutes. Turn off the heat and cover the pot. Let the lima beans soak for 2 – 2 1/2 hours. Drain and rinse beans and return to the pot. From here, you can add the sauteed vegetables, the broth, and make the soup according to the instructions.
To use this method, you’ll put the lima beans in a large bowl or pot that will allow enough room for the beans to double in size. Then, cover the beans with 10 cups of cold water. Cover up the container and put it in the fridge overnight.
When you’re ready to make your soup, drain the water from the beans and rinse them. Put your drained beans in a large pot. From here, you can add the sauteed vegetables, the broth, and make the soup according to the instructions.
How to Thicken Lima Bean Soup
If you like a thicker soup, you have a couple of options:
When I make this Lima Bean Soup recipe, I smash some of the beans with my spoon or a potato masher at the end of the cooking process. You can also blend up some of the beans with an immersion blender.
You can add less of the broth to ensure that your soup is thicker. If you wish to use this option, add only 6 cups of broth at first. Add more broth later for thinning out the soup, if needed.
We hope this Lima Bean Soup is a recipe that your family can enjoy for many years to come. It’s a favorite of ours and will most likely become a favorite in your household too. Let us know what you think!
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Lima Bean Soup
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4.8 from 4 reviews
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Ingredients
Scale
1 pound dry large lima beans
8 cups water
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 carrots (chopped)
2 leeks (white bulb only, chopped)
2 tablespoons minced shallots
2 stalks celery (chopped)
8 cups chicken broth (two 32 ounce cartons)
Salt & pepper (to taste)
Instructions
Bring 8 cups of water to a boil. Add lima beans and boil for 5 – 10 minutes. Remove from heat, cover. Let beans soak for 2 – 2.5 hours. Drain and rinse beans; return to pot.
In a large pan, heat olive oil and saute all the vegetables until carrots and celery are tender-crisp.
Add 8 cups of chicken broth to the beans in the pot. Add the vegetables. Stir to combine and simmer on low for 1.5 hours; stirring frequently. Season with salt and pepper as desired.
Notes
THICKER SOUP TIPS: If you wish this soup to be thicker, you can add only 6 cups of broth at first. Add more broth later for thinning out the soup, if needed. Another option is to smash some of the beans with a spoon or a potato masher at the end of the cooking process. You can also blend up some of the beans with an immersion blender.
Note: Towards the end of the cooking, I smashed some of the beans a bit with my spoon to help thicken the soup. This is purely optional, but I was happy with the result.
Lima beans are nutritious food said to be rich in protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Some potential health benefits of lima beans include stabilizing blood sugar levels, promoting heart health, supporting weight loss, and improving digestive health.
Lima beans are almost always cooked. If you buy dried beans, you will need to soak them first. Before soaking beans, spread them on a flat surface and remove all debris, small stones, or damaged beans. Then, rinse the beans in a strainer under cool running water.
Well, rest assured; the two are actually one in the same. There's no difference between lima beans and butter beans, though sometimes they're sold at different stages of maturity. As a matter of fact, our Large Lima Beans packaging actually states Butter Beans in parentheses, just to clarify.
As with most beans, lima beans are an excellent source of fiber and a good source of protein, but they also pack a bonus for people who want to lower blood pressure: They're higher in potassium than some of their counterparts, making them a good choice for a diet for high blood pressure.
Lima beans are a vegetable that is part of the legume family. The proper name for the lima bean plant is “lunatus” which means “half-moon” and refers to the shape of the bean. The small white seeds are the legumes, and the green shell is the pod. The pod should be removed before eating.
If you're the impatient, bean-hungry type, you can cook your beans from dry without any soaking at all. Here's the thing: Beans that have not been soaked ahead of time will always take longer to cook, but they will, indeed, cook.
What's interesting to me about this is that along with chickpeas, limas are some of the least beany tasting of beans, with a flavor that fans describe as nutty and sweet. But overcook them, and they can turn bitter and sulfurous, not unlike other oft-maligned foods, such as Brussels sprouts and broccoli.
Cooking dried lima beans is simple. For a fast cooking time, just soak them in water overnight, drain and cover with fresh water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Simmer for an hour and then use the beans however you'd like!
Just add acid! A small amount of an acidic ingredient like lemon juice added at the end of cooking brightens flavors, especially in long-simmered bean soups or rich meat-based soups. Start with a little bit of acid, taste and adjust, until your soup tastes balanced and bright.
Sometimes soup just needs to simmer longer to reach the perfect consistency. Check to see if the vegetables are tender, and then taste the broth. If the soup tastes a bit watery, give it more time.
Cornstarch, or corn flour, can be used to thicken soup through its high starch content. Cornstarch is a great thickener for soup because only a little bit is needed to significantly thicken a soup, and it will not affect the flavor profile of the soup.
Lima beans can be bitter because they weren't soaked before cooking. Soaking removes phytate, and boiling for a long time destroys lectins. Here are some ways to remove bitterness from lima beans: Quick soak: Cover the beans with water, bring to a boil, and then turn off the heat.
A lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus), also commonly known as butter bean, sieva bean, double bean or Madagascar bean, is a legume grown for its edible seeds or beans.
Also, lima beans are rich in antioxidants called polyphenols that can help improve the way your heart and blood vessels work, boost levels of healthy HDL cholesterol, lower LDL (bad) cholesterol, and fight inflammation. Anemia is a blood disorder that can be caused by not getting enough iron in your diet.
However, they may contain harmful compounds like anti-nutrients and linamarin, which may cause digestive issues if eaten in high amounts. Always soak raw or dried lima beans before you cook them. Like other legumes, lima beans can enjoyed in moderation as part of a healthy, well-rounded diet.
Lima beans are a low-fat source of healthy complex carbs, fiber, and protein. Lima beans are rich in potassium, iron, magnesium, and vitamin C. They also provide zinc, calcium, vitamin K, and vitamin A.
Lima beans are super nutritious. They're a good source of plant-based protein, fiber, iron, folate, zinc, copper, potassium, thiamine, and more. Plus, studies show that eating beans may promote fat loss and that peeps who eat lots of beans tend to have less body fat than folks who don't.
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